[Anna] gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
\n \u2014 Luke 2:38<\/p>\n
Sometimes just after the Christmas holiday, I feel a bit of a letdown. For weeks I\u2019ve built up excitement for the coming holiday and have looked forward to celebrating. But now, even if there\u2019s still a family gathering or two to attend, the big event is in the past. And I know that in a few days we\u2019ll start to take down decorations and clear away all the traces of our celebrations.But Christmas has a future dimension as well. It\u2019s not just in the past. Jesus has come, and his first coming is not the only thing that brings us hope.In the temple, Jesus\u2019 parents met Anna. She had dedicated her life to worship and to looking for signs of God\u2019s salvation. Now, as an elderly woman, she recognized the fulfillment of her prayers in Jesus\u2019 birth. And there\u2019s more: Anna encouraged the people around her to see in Jesus the redemption promised to God\u2019s people.Of course, the infant Jesus had not yet completed the work of redemption, and Anna would not likely live to see Christ\u2019s finished work. But her hope reminds us that Christmas is about more than the present times we live in. Jesus has come, and his birth points to the redemption of God\u2019s people. What\u2019s more, through his death and resurrection he has completed the work of salvation for us. And in some ways like Anna, we wait in hope today for his coming again (Revelation 21-22). The best is yet to come!<\/p>\n
Lord, may the gift of your birth give us hope for the future as we await your coming again. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Anna] gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. \u2014 Luke 2:38 Sometimes just after the Christmas holiday, I feel a bit of a letdown. For weeks I\u2019ve built up excitement for the coming holiday and have looked forward to celebrating. But now,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[813,491,410],"class_list":["post-13957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-devotionals","tag-christmas","tag-future","tag-promise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}