Change of Plans

Today is Christmas Eve.

The plan: sleep in, make breakfast, watch a Christmas movie as a family, make lunch/dinner and final preparations for our friends to join us for a festive Christmas Eve Party.

Christmas Party: hugs and kisses, lay out the appetizer spread, turn up Christmas music, chat, laugh, eat. Finish lunch/dinner. Begin festive games and chatter. Leave for traditional German Christmas Eve service. Return home. Eat dessert. Laugh, chatter. Read Christmas story from Luke. Sing songs, in the right key, give hugs and kisses and say good night.

Well, we slept in...late. Made breakfast but had no time for a movie. We watched the snow fall and admired its beauty while frantically finishing prepping for dinner. Friends arrive, we exchange fun gifts, laugh and chat. Eat lunch/dinner and contemplate braving the snow covered roads to make it to that traditional German service. We deem the roads to sketchy to travel on and decide to turn on a broadcast of the Nine Lessons in Carols from Kings College Chapel in Cambridge. The boys are running wild, begging for dessert, to play games, and bounce off the walls. Our friends' daughter doesn't feel well and wants to go home. Mom takes daughter home, hoping to perk her up and return for the rest of the evening. We send boys to their rooms to chill for a bit. At home, daughter is in tears and goes to bed. Mom calls to say she isn't coming back. Boys are allowed to come down stairs. Dad fills up on some dessert and then heads home. It wasn't what we planned. The house felt empty. No Christmas service, no games, no late night laugher and sweet moments of reverence as we ponder the meaning of this day.

I expect that Mary hoped to deliver her firstborn son somewhere other than in an old manger. I'm sure Joseph planned to have a less scandalous beginning to his marriage. And those shepherds were probably hoping to squeeze in a few winks that night rather than being interrupted by an entire host of singing angels. Herod thought he could put an end to this messiah talk by taking out infant boys, and Satan thought he could have a fighting chance against God by putting Jesus on the cross. Sometimes, things just don't go as we plan.

After an hour or so of re-grouping we gathered around our beautiful tree, turned off all the lights in the house and played a game. We ate dessert, read the Christmas story and listened to Christmas music. We even attempted a few carols of our own. It was not in key, in tune or on pitch but it was fun and it filled our house. The boys watched NORAD to track Santa and after a bedtime story and last minute instructions on what time they are allowed to wake us up in the morning they headed to bed. Matt and I are jammified and ready to watch our favorite Christmas movie. In the end, although it wasn't how we thought it would go, it turned out quite well.

"So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 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."

8 days later Mary and Joseph presented their son at the temple and they named him Jesus, just as the angel instructed them to.

and "God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

He wasn't born the way a king is expected to be born, he didn't save the Israelites the way they had hoped, but when he reached out his arms on Calvary it no longer mattered how people expected things to go...God had a different plan and the blood that Jesus shed offered redemption, hope, and eternity greater than any earthly plan.