NOTES for Luk 1:67-79
Christmas Eve is one of the most difficult days of the year. The texts read this morning and evening convey all the tension that has accumulated within us by this day. There is a prophecy, it is known to have been fulfilled, and we already know why and how God came to us as Man. Yet while awaiting Christmas, we all live through the day when He has not yet been born but we no longer have the strength to wait. What if it is not so? What if it is a mistake, a fantasy, the eternal desire to pass off what we wish for as reality? We wait for Him, we fear being mistaken, and we gather together to live through these few hours remaining until His birth. And when we see Him, the Infant given to us for salvation, together with Zechariah we will laugh at our fears and because He has once again led us out of the "shadow of death."