Do you feel the anticipation? Perhaps more than any other time of year, Christmas is a time of anticipation. When we go back to the first Christmas, we find a sense of almost exhausted anticipation among the people of Israel. The Old Testament promise of a Messiah began as early as Genesis 3, building with God's promises to Abraham and then King David, all the way up through the prophets, both major and minor. Then there was silence, a pregnant pause of 400 years. Israel was waiting, watching, praying, hoping for the fulfillment of God's promises, wondering when the long-expected Messiah would arrive. Take a trip from Old Testament to New as we remember their anticipation, and stir our own.
