By Canaan Chapman
I love Christmas and Advent. There’s something special about this time of year. Can I share something I struggle with? The post-holiday “let down.” It’s like December packs so much of a punch that I stagger afterward, unsteady and almost lost after the crescendo of Christmas day. Sure, the much-appreciated family time and thoughtful gifts could carry the joy onward, but all too soon the denouement comes; the climax of the day falls and the holiday unravels. Family leaves, decorations come down, work and school begin again, and where are we? Surely I can’t be the only one who feels a little sad when the season comes to an end.
For believers, Christmas isn’t about the presents as much as it is the presence. It’s the grace of God that Jesus happens to be both—His presence is the ultimate present. It’s the gift that gives the season meaning. But even Jesus’s earthly season came to an end. Jesus’s time on earth was meant to be finite. He came to perform a precise mission; through His death, resurrection, and ascension, He returned to be with God the Father to be a blessing to many. And many thought His time on earth was much too short.
I can only imagine how they felt when Jesus said, figuratively, “the family must go home, the decorations must come down, and you’ve got to go back to work.” But He had our best interest in mind. His ascension was never meant to be the end but the surprise beginning of another gift—the Holy Spirit, an unfathomably gracious blessing.
Today’s reading reminded me of this surprise. Jesus, in His infinite wisdom, reassures us with a promise: the Holy Spirit will come (and for believers now, has indeed come). Jesus left this earth, paving the way for the “Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, [who] will teach you all things” (John 14:26). Basically, “Surprise, here’s another gift!”
The Holy Spirit wasn’t meant to be a substitute for Jesus’s physical presence. He tells us Himself that the Holy Spirit is something far greater. The Spirit, Jesus explains, would convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). Talk about a power! But Jesus had to go back to the Father so the Holy Spirit could come and dwell in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus, by His grace and through faith.
So we have to ask ourselves, are we content with that? Now that Christmas is over and the countdown of Advent concluded, what are we left with? Do we let the end of the season bring us down?
Thankfully, Christmas hasn’t ended—truly, it never did. Our pure joy is in the truth that the Holy Spirit lives with and in believers today.
Do we feel the Holy Spirit power at work in our lives? Are we allowing it to convict us, to guide us, to set us on fire to live for Christ? Let’s pray for a fresh reminder of the Holy Spirit, a renewed sense of purpose and power to live out our faith in the world.
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