So who here is ready for Christmas? Have you got everything sorted already? Are you one of those organised people just waiting for 25th December to come along? Or are you, like me, rather surprised how quickly Christmas has come this year and have you still got loads to do?
What I thought we'd do this morning is draw up a list of some of the Christmas jobs we haven’t done yet. Who'd like to start? And how many things can we fit onto one side of paper?
…
Judging from that great long list it seems that very few, if any of us, are ready for Christmas. We know it's coming each year, and we know what we have to do. But somehow it always seems to come more quickly than we imagine, and no matter how much we get organised, there's always more to prepare.
Of course the first Christmas was a very different affair. There were no glitzy celebrations, no public holidays, no massive parties. Nobody even knew the exact date on which Jesus, the Son of God, would be born. But the Bible makes it clear that the people of God should nonetheless have been ready for this great event. For hundreds of years they had heard of wonderful prophecies about the coming of a king, and the birth of a child, Emmanuel, God with us. They might not have known how precisely these words were going to be fulfilled, but they should have been looking for, and expecting, something very special to happen.
But when the actual time came, who was ready for that first Christmas?
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