The Gift of Anticipation - Wk 1
December 4, 2022

The Three Gifts of Christmas

Week one - The Gift of Anticipation
James 1:17-18, Psalm 130, and Luke 2:22-38


Good gift givers consistently give people great gifts they didn’t even know about or know they wanted.

God is a good gift giver.

17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. —James 1:17-18

A little history…
God made the world and everything in it and said it was good.
Then we tried to take on the world on our own - we wanted to know everything and have it within our control.
This led to “not goodness.”
Ever since this point, God has been pursuing us and setting things back to original factory condition, which was good. Only, this is a process…God is being patient as an act of grace, and we don’t really have much patience for that.

Part of the way we navigate the uncertainty and “not goodness” of the world around us, is by

good gifts from God.

Anticipation is

on something you know is going to happen

Our faith in the fact that Jesus is coming again, is grounded in the fact that Jesus showed up the first time.


Expectation
Our waiting on God is an expectant waiting, which is why it’s hope and not wishful thinking.
We know something is coming because something has already started.

Psalm 130 -
5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. 6 I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. —Psalm 130:5-6

  • Watchmen for the morning because they know it’s coming, but they still watch because they don’t know exactly it will come.

We’re watching because we don’t know exactly what’s going to be or when it’s going to happen. It’s a

.


Mystery

Luke 2 - Simeon and Anna - waiting and watching, they know God is going to come through on His promise
I don’t think they expected a baby.
They couldn’t have understood “the consolation of Israel” as a baby needing to be consoled, but they didn’t have to understand to worship

Mystery teaches us to not put things too quickly in the boxes of “good” and “not good” or “it” and “not it”

There’s a gift in the expectancy and in the mystery.

Holy anticipation is the expectation that God is up to something good, coupled with the excitement and mystery of just how and just when that goodness will come.

We wait and we watch because we know God is going to come through, but we can’t even imagine how it will happen and what it will look like. But it’s going to be so good…because God is a good gift giver.