Transcript

One of my favorite Christmas carols is “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” I just love the invitation in there. I love the words, "Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant," and those are descriptors that I don't normally think to label myself, especially in mid December. I think of myself as frazzled, exhausted, drained. But that carol is an invitation to worship the Lord, to come and adore Him, and our joyfulness, our triumphantness comes as we behold Him, as we adore Him. And so that carol is an invitation to do that and a promise that we are joyful and triumphant because He has come, and He is the King, and we have so much to celebrate.

After I bought my first condo a couple of years ago, I got myself a nativity set that I really liked. One of the things with the nativity set was Mary was holding the baby Jesus. I think that's beautiful, but then I wanted to celebrate the tradition of waiting until Christmas Day to put baby Jesus in the nativity. So I needed a different figurine for Mary and a different figurine for Jesus.

Yeah. It was actually last Christmas, it was after Christmas, but I found a Mary figurine that I really liked, an expectant Mary. Opening that package and just seeing the expectant Mary just really was such a beautiful ... because her posture, she's very obviously pregnant and kind of looking down and is contemplative. You just realize, wow, Jesus dwells in us and among us, and just the sense of expectancy of what he's going to do in us and for us and through us. And so, I've actually had that Mary figurine out on display all year long because I want to be in a posture of expectancy and just really thinking about the nearness of Jesus in my life.