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 built up in us by this day. It seems that the prophecy exists, it is known that it was fulfilled, and we already know why and how God came to us as a Man. But while waiting for Christmas, we all live through the day when He has not yet been born, and yet there is no strength left to wait. What if everything is not so? What if this is a mistake, a fantasy, the eternal desire to pass off what we want as reality? We wait for Him, we are afraid of being mistaken, and we gather together to live through these few hours remaining before His birth.
And when we see Him, the Child given to us for salvation, together with Zechariah we will laugh at our fears and at the fact that He has once again led us out of the "shadow of death."