The Look of Favor
Our paper chain along with an ornament my aunt made for me when I was about 12. I have hung it on the tree every year for over 50 years and am looking forward to putting it on the tree again this year.
by Katie Harding on November 27, 2023
As we set up our Christmas tree this week, we will do it the same way we’ve done every year. First Mike will put on the lights. Next, I will carefully place the paper chain we made for our first Christmas, along with the tinsel we purchased that same year (44 years ago). Then we will hang tons of ornaments — some dating back to childhood, others from friends, and then our favorites, the ones created with photos of our children, and finally, the star. Every year I take photos of our tree in different stages of decorating, and they look almost identical to the year before. This is part of our ordinary life.
In preparation for Advent this year, it’s important to remember Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, and the shepherds were all living the ordinary, as well. As we encounter them in the Scriptures, they were faithfully attending to their daily tasks and responsibilities. They were ordinary people living ordinary lives. Yet, if there is one thing we can glean from them, it’s that even though they were living the ordinary, they worshipped an extraordinary God. One who not only saw them in the midst of the ordinary, but One who looked upon them with favor.
In our journey of Advent, which begins December 3, let us remember that God does the same with each of His children. God sees us in our place of ordinary. He sees our successes and our failures. He sees our joys and our sorrows. He sees our faith and our fears. He sees who we are and who we are yet to be and looks upon us with favor. That’s what the first Christmas was all about: God, being faithful to His covenantal promises, looked with favor upon His people, and raised up a mighty Savior through the birth of Christ our Lord.
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them” (Luke 1:68).
God looks upon us with favor as He forgives us of our sins and gives us a new life in Christ through the indwelling of His Spirit, all because of the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus the Messiah. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” John 3:17. This is why we celebrate Christmas. Let us begin to prepare our hearts for the journey to the stable.