Christmas Eve
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.”
Luke 2:6-7
Imagine walking through your front door and inhaling the mouth-watering aroma of Christmas turkey roasting in the oven. You heard you were having a stuffed bird for holiday dinner, but now it’s finally here and your sniffer tells you so, doesn’t it?
Well, not quite. The turkey is still cooking, and it will spend another hour or so in the oven before you lift that drumstick to your mouth. Dinner is not ready yet. It is time… Almost, but not quite.
Oh, but the aroma! It’s so powerful! Your mouth is watering, and you can almost taste that Butterball. Hey, you’re hungry! Funny thing is, you didn’t know you were hungry before you walked into the house. It was just that sweet aroma of something in the oven that did it.
Friend, that is the nature of things that “whet your appetite.” And this is why we look back at the birth of Jesus with such a longing. We never knew how hungry we were for God until Jesus arrived.
When he was delivered onto the stable straw, we caught the fragrance of the presence of the Lord of the universe. We inhaled the aroma of something that smelled like Immanuel, “God with us,” and we became acutely aware of a hunger deep inside. We hardly had words for it, but it was—it is—a longing for the Lord.
For those who embrace the Savior in the stable of their heart, God has given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee, a kind of down payment. Or, to be more in line with our image of turkey dinners, he has “whetted our appetite” for something more wonderful to come. And I tell you, that down payment of the Spirit is remarkable.
You can almost taste the fullness of the Lord, can’t you? You almost have to remind yourself that God is here with us, but—no, wait—he is still coming. His kingdom has arrived, but not in its fullness yet. We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, but the banquet—the real feasting—is still on the horizon. And this is what the Holy Spirit does in our lives: he keeps whetting our appetite for God.
And so, we look back to that first Christmas with warm pleasure. We cradle the Lord Jesus in our hearts and breathe in the aroma of his presence. And we treasure the time when soon—oh, very soon—we shall sit down with him at the wedding supper of the Lamb. And that will be, my friend, the real holiday dinner!
Until then, we look back at Bethlehem, smile, and thank God for giving us a taste—a delicious Christmas taste—of glorious things to come.
Joni Eareckson Tada’s 5-Part Advent Devotional
The time for celebrating our Savior’s birth and his long-awaited return has come! Download my Advent guide and prepare the stable of your heart.
