December 2025 Message From Pastor Mike “Waiting For Christmas Day”

Despite all our experience, most of us are not good at waiting. Patience may be a virtue, but it’s a
fleeting one. Whether we are anticipating something good – like Christmas Day – or dreading something
bad – like a dentist appointment – waiting may be, as the song goes, the hardest part.

Christmas is a season of waiting. We decorate the church four weeks ahead of time. We plan
special holiday events months in advance. We request, purchase, wrap, send and deliver presents well
ahead of time so they can sit patiently under the tree.

While we may not enjoy the waiting, it’s actually good for us. It’s good for our souls, because it
reminds us of how the world waited for the Savior’s birth. God declared His promise long in advance.
Time after time, He repeated His plan to send the Messiah. For generations, people of faith watched and
waited for God’s promise to come true.

As they waited, God sent messengers with words of hope about what the Savior would bring.
Isaiah shared God’s word with the Israelites 700 years before Jesus’ birth. He encouraged people with
numerous prophetic images of the promised Redeemer, including these words:
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
to free captives from prison
and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness (Isaiah 42:6-7).

Like a blind person waiting for light to shine, like a prisoner waiting to be set free, God’s
Old Testament people were called to wait with joyful, expectant hope. Something glorious is
coming. Someone wonderful will be born. Just wait and see what God will do!
In the same way, God calls New Testament believers like us to wait with hope, to anticipate with
joy. What are we waiting for? Many good things.

This season, we are waiting for Christmas, our day of joy and celebration. We celebrate
Christmas all through the Advent season, singing our favorite carols and reading the Gospel
story over again, and all along the way, we count down to Christmas Day with all its glad tidings.
Take the waiting to heart. Let it stretch your soul and teach you the blessing of joyful
anticipation.

All year long, we wait for good things from God. We pray for His help, and then we wait
for His hand to move. We sense the Spirit’s calling, and then we wait for the right door to open. We
trust that God will provide, and then we wait to receive the good things He has promised. Waiting in
faith is just another name for hope, and hope does not disappoint us (Romans 5:5).

Our faith also calls us to wait for Jesus to come again. Just as people long ago waited for the
Messiah’s birth, now we wait for His promised return. Christmas reminds us that God always keeps His
word. We wait with joyful anticipation for all God’s promises to come true in the new heaven and the
new earth (Revelation 21:1-7).

Joy to the world! Come, Lord Jesus!