When Christmas Expectations Are Ruined

By Ann Swindell

Photo by morefun_boy on Unsplash

Mary’s Uncomfortable Christmas

Mary was the first mother to experience Christmas, and I doubt it was what she expected when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and declared she’d bear God’s Son (Luke 1).

Her pregnancy as a virgin meant Joseph needed angelic intervention in order to believe its divine origins (Matt. 1:18–25). Caesar Augustus’s decree for a census of the entire Roman world meant long and arduous travel in the late, and most uncomfortable, stage of her pregnancy. The lack of an available guest room for her delivery (in a new town, nonetheless) meant she labored without the comforts of home and ended up placing her firstborn in an animal trough (Luke 2). Her Christmas was messy and uncomfortable.

And yet, while Mary’s first Christmas looked far from perfect—and far from what she might’ve hoped for—it was exactly what God had planned. His glory was on display through Jesus’s humble birth and declared to lowly shepherds with angelic fanfare as the good news was proclaimed: “A Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (v. 11, NIV).

In response, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (v. 19). While the difficulties of the journey and her labor might’ve been disappointing, the good news of the gospel—proclaimed about this tiny babe in a manger—was worth cherishing. For that first Christmas wasn’t ultimately about what Mary wanted or expected, it was about Jesus and the good news that he came to save his people.

Israel’s Misguided Expectations

Years later, as Jesus entered public ministry, he didn’t meet the expectations of many Israelites. Although Jesus was born in Bethlehem—the place where the prophet Micah foretold the Messiah would be born (Mic. 5:2)—he didn’t turn out to be the kind of leader they were looking for. The Israelites wanted a Messiah who’d become king (John 6:15) and rid them of Rome, and be a “shepherd” full of “strength” and “majesty” whose greatness would reach “to the ends of the earth” (Mic. 5:4).

Jesus didn’t come to Israel as a conquering hero. He didn’t check the boxes they wanted in a king. He didn’t try to overthrow their Roman oppressors; he taught about a kingdom that had no earthly armies. He wasn’t physically attractive, and he didn’t even put up a fight when it came to defending his own life (Isa. 53:2–3). He was hated and maligned, disparaged, and finally crucified.

And because of their misguided expectations, many Israelites missed the Messiah they’d been longing for. They rejected him: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11).

But for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the kingdom that Jesus proclaims is far better than any earthly one. It’s an everlasting kingdom, and he’s its King, the ultimate defeater of his people’s greatest enemies of sin, death, and separation from the Father. His victory has won for us the immeasurable treasure of becoming God’s children.

Article excerpt taken from The Gospel Coalition (U.S. Edition). Read the full resource here: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/christmas-expectations-ruined/