Hannah Acheson Photography

Christmas Eve

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“Jesus, the Christ, born in Bethlehem
a baby born to save, to save the souls of man.”
>> Joy Wiliams (LISTEN)

I love the way our house just grows with laughter and anticipation as we all start coming home for Christmas. As the house collects people, it collects noise and memories and fun and food. Mostly noise… anyone who truly knows my family can really attest to this.
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I left school and made the cross-country trip (and slept until noon the next day) nearly two weeks ago. My brother arrived about a week later, after a carefully-guarded secret on my part – a surprise for the entire rest of the family. My sister will fly in later tonight, after we’ve gone to a candlelight service and finally had a chance to quiet our busy selves.

Christmas Eve is, hands-down, the best day of the year. My favorite in every way. Even when the excitement of the holiday season is at fever pitch, something happens about the time it starts to get dark. The rule is no lights in the entire house except for candles and Christmas lights. It’s a beautiful thing. There are enough Christmas lights around here to illuminate a small football stadium, but it’s still magical. Almost surreal.
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My friend and I were trying to figure out why Christmas Eve is our favorite day of the year, and I think we’ve got the answer. It’s because it’s the culmination of the entire holiday season in one day. It’s the anticipation and the beauty and the glory and the excitement and the peace.

Even in the darkness and the stillness, the light and hope shines through. It makes Christmas Eve the unwrapping of the Gift – the best Gift of all…

Jesus.

It’s a cliché, perhaps. But the truest cliché in the world. When God gives, He gives fully, completely.

So why Christmas? Why do we even celebrate? What’s it for? I sit curled on the couch with my journal and a pen one morning a few days ago, asking myself that question. I want to find where He wrote out His purpose in words.

And I found it. It’s in the very nature of His name. Jesus.

The angel comes to Joseph to announce that his world, which has just fallen apart in his hands, is really just beginning. The girl, Mary – for that’s what she is, not even as much of a woman as 21-year-old me – has come back from a six-month visit with her cousin, and Joseph sees the painful truth.

She’s pregnant, and he knows there’s no way she carries his child. Before the angel comes, he’d worked it all out in his head. He’d let her go, even though he loved her. He’d save his family’s reputation and his own, he’d be merciful instead of turning her into a public spectacle.

After he had makes up his mind, the angel comes. Which is pretty amazing, considering that God has been silent for the last 600 years (with the exception of Zechariah and Mary’s angel-visits). Joseph was wrong about Mary – but then again. How could he have possibly guessed that his fiancé was carrying the Son of God? Pregnant by the creative power of God Himself, a child stitched together with grace and glory and a miracle?

And the angel tells Joseph the reason. The purpose for this. When He would be born, He already had a name, chosen from the beginning of time and proof of what He was doing here: “Call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
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That’s all it is, I realize, as I curl up on the couch and scribble the words. His purpose. To save. Spoken by an angel. And spoken by Himself… I think of the words Jesus Himself spoke later on, spelled out in red in Luke 19:10: “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

That’s why He came. Because God could’ve give any less. His greatest love was completed in the greatest humility – a child. The very hands that created the universe became weak. He accepted the confines of us, to save us. To fulfill what we could not.

And it rings in my head all.day.long…

 It’s still a mystery to me
That the hands of God could be so small
How tiny fingers reaching in the night
Were the very hands that measured the sky…

It’s still a mystery to me
How His infant eyes have seen the dawn of time
How His ears have heard an angel’s symphony
But still Mary had to rock her Savior to sleep
(Joy Williams)

“God gives God. He withholds no good thing from you,” writes Ann Voskamp.

“And the good things in life are not so much health, but holiness, not so much riches in this world, but relationship with God; not so much our plans, but His presence—and He withholds no good thing from us because the greatest things aren’t ever things. He doesn’t withhold Jesus from you. Christ is all your good, and He is all yours, and this is always your miracle.”

Because He couldn’t just give us salvation, He couldn’t just save us — He had to love us. He gave us a relationship.

That’s why I like Christmas Eve. Because it’s a chance to soak in all He’s done. It’s a realization that “He withholds nothing.” His presence. His very presence in my life. Enough of a gift to make everything else pale in comparison.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes it in a way that rings in my heart late on this Christmas Eve and is written in messy, wonderful capital letters in my journal…

GOD’S GIFTS PUTS MAN’S 
BEST DREAMS TO SHAME.

Merry Christmas. Today and always.

“Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Heaven’s love reaching down to save the world.”
>> Joy Williams, Here with Us 
– and if you haven’t gotten the hint… listen to it.

(quote from Ann Voskamp: The Greatest Gift)

Child of healing, Child of hope
Take the things that hurt us most.
And with your touch they’ll be redeemed
Holy Child of Christmas dreams….
That night in manger lay
A Child Who came to save…
ps – if you have time for one more song… Heather Sorenson: Christmas Dreams – you won’t regret it ONE.BIT.

Hannah Acheson

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Comments

  2. Leaf Dance Photography says

    Mmh…I love this post ever so much; reading this was food for my soul and good cheer to my heart. And as a fellow Christmas Eve lover, I appreciated hearing your perspective on the "why".
    I am ever so glad I found your blog two years ago; some blogs I love for the photos, yours I love because of your story- your story of loving your family, giving thanks for pretty much everything, and how you brag on our God.
    Plus; you design a mean blog and take great pictures. 😉
    MERRY CHRISTMAS! =D

    God bless,

    ~Jenny

    Reply

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