Start looking up!

         One of my favorite Dietrich Bonhoeffer passages shared in a sermon in London on December 3, 1933:

          "You know what a mine disaster is.  In recent weeks we have had to read about one on the newspapers. 
         The moment even the most courageous miner has dreaded his whole life long is here.  It is no use running into the walls; the silence all around him remains...The way out for him is blocked.  He knows the people up there are working feverishly to reach the miners who are buried alive.  Perhaps someone will be rescued, but here in the last shaft?  An agonizing period of waiting and dying is all that remains.
         But suddenly a noise that sounds like tapping and breaking in the rock can be heard.  Unexpectedly, voices cry out, 'Where are you, help is on the way!'  Then the disheartened miner picks himself up, his heart leaps, he shouts, 'Here I am, come on through and help me!  Just come soon!'  A final, desperate hammer blow to his ear, now the rescue is near, just one more step and he is free.
         We have spoken of Advent itself.  That is how it is with the coming of Christ: 'Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.'" (Luke 21:28)

          That is Christmas--the divine rescue operation is finally, in God's perfect timing, launched.   God invades His creation--now marred by sin and death--and with the first gulp of air filling the infant Messiah's tiny lungs, He begins the glorious process of reclaiming, restoring, redeeming His beloved children. 
         Begun in a lowly animal's feeding trough, that rescue operation would end on a wretched wooden cross on Calvary.  Oh, but the most glorious plan ever to save humanity would not end on that lonely hill.  No, no, "raise your heads" and look up as the resurrected Lord conquers sin and death and secures your redemption!
         We were once all like that utterly hopeless, helpless miner...but now Christ has come!  Christ has conquered.  And Christ--Emmanuel--is here, with you, with me, right this moment and in all of our moments all the way until the end of time and into eternity.  He has already won your freedom, assured your salvation, and opened the way out of the darkness and desperation and into His glorious light. 
         Stop regretting the past.  Stop fretting over the future.   Stop looking down...and start looking up for your redemption is drawing near!
         No matter what's happening in your life today, pause right now to look up, remember, and rejoice in the freedom and redemption Christ has already won for you and in the wondrous future you will have with Him forever. 
         To God be the glory.