Episode Details

In our modern world, Christmas is all about… ANTICIPATION

Anticipation: Waiting eagerly for something you know is going to happen

• Gifts
• Food
• Gatherings
• Lights

The Story of Christmas is actually about a DIFFERENT type of waiting… LONGING

Longing: A strong desire, especially for something unattainable

Let’s talk about longing before we get to how it is a part of Christmas
We have all experienced some sort of longing

Nostalgia – Longing for a time in the past

Sorrow – Longing for something lost

Grief – Longing for someone who is gone
We can long for…

• An opportunity that may never come
• Health outcome
• Financial windfall
• Etc

Longing – The Cracked Bowl

• Regardless of how much is put in, it always runs low

Our hearts/souls also leak

• We are constantly needing to FILL BACK UP
• This leak is LONGING

The trouble is…

Our world offers MANY things that claim to “FILL OUR BOWL”

• To fix the longing

Things like…

Stuff – But it is never enough (The bowl leaks)

Relationships – But we always get let down (The bowl leaks)

Physical pleasure – We always have to have more (The bowl leaks)

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” ~C.S. Lewis

New Series Called…

THE SONGS OF CHRISTMAS
More than any other holiday, Christmas is defined by it’s MUSIC

• Some are “Jingle Bells”
• But some speak a powerful truth…

Each week…

Taking a different song and discovering it TRUTH
SONG:

O come, O come, Immanuel
History:

• Over 1,200 years old
• Originally written in Latin
• Sung for centuries of Christians speaking to the LONGING of our souls and world

Let’s look at a few lines from the song…

1 O come, O come, Immanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.

4 O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem, unto your own and rescue them! From depths of hell your people save, and give them victory o’er the grave.

5 O come, O Key of David, come and open wide our heavenly home. Make safe for us the heavenward road and bar the way to death’s abode.

6 O come, O Bright and Morning Star, and bring us comfort from afar! Dispel the shadows of the night and turn our darkness into light.

7 O come, O King of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind. Bid all our sad divisions cease and be yourself our King of Peace.
But then there is the REFRAIN

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to you, O Israel.
You can feel the LONGING

• Not at home
• Something we wait for but cannot get ourselves

How should we respond to a song like this?
John 4

7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the wa