INTRODUCTION
Christmas always pulls us into memory. We can’t help it. Every song, every smell, every blinking light seems to whisper something from yesterday. I have ornaments on my tree that are so old they have seen better decades. Some are handmade, held together by glue and nostalgia. Others were gifts from people who now live only in my memories. My wife and I can stand there, just looking at a single ornament, and be transported clear back to another chapter in life.
Christmas doesn’t just mark time. It gathers time. It brings our past, our present, and our future all into the same room. We feel joy and ache at the same time. We celebrate and we miss people. We laugh, and sometimes we cry into our cocoa. Christmas wakes up both our longing and our hope.
It is the perfect season to remember a truth God has been singing over the world since Bethlehem:
He came. He comes. He’s coming again.
That’s the heartbeat of Christmas:
• Christmas Past reminds us what God has already done.
• Christmas Present reminds us what God is doing now.
• Christmas Future reminds us where we are heading.
Let’s explore those three tenses of the Gospel, starting where the Christmas story begins… not in a stable… but in a quiet temple, with a startled priest who suddenly has nothing to say.
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CHRISTMAS PAST
When God steps into history, ordinary people step into His story.
Zechariah: The surprise of unanswered prayers being answered
Zechariah is a character who doesn’t appear on many Christmas cards. He doesn’t usually fit in the nativity set between the shepherds and the sheep. Yet Luke tells his story first, before Mary, before the manger, before anything with angels singing above pastures.
Zechariah is old. He’s faithful. He’s tired. He and Elizabeth have prayed for children, but those prayers are filed under “I guess that wasn’t God’s plan.” Life has moved on.
Then one ordinary workday… everything changes.
He is standing in the holy place, doing exactly what he has been trained to do for decades, when suddenly an angel appears. Not a chubby baby with wings. A warrior of the presence of God. Zechariah’s knees buckle. His heart tries to escape his chest. Luke says he was “gripped with fear.” I would be, too. Most of us would invent new ways to faint.
Gabriel speaks calm into the panic:
“Do not be afraid. Your prayer has been heard.”
Zechariah is thinking, Which prayer? The one Elizabeth and I stopped praying years ago?
Gabriel continues:
“Your wife will bear you a son. Call him John. He will prepare the way for the Lord.”
The greatest prophet in centuries—and that prophet will be your son. A fresh work of God, bursting into your family.
Zechariah’s response is painfully familiar:
“How can I be sure? I’m old. She’s old. I need proof.”
We nod because we know that reflex. We pray for miracles then panic if they come true.
Gabriel practically says:
“I didn’t come from a fortune cookie. I came from the throne room.”
And Zechariah loses his voice for nine months. Not as punishment. As preparation. As silence to make room for wonder.
Because when God interrupts your life, doubt may be understandable, but trust unlocks joy.
We relate to Zechariah because we also ask:
“Was that God… or just my imagination?”
“Could a blessing like that really be for someone like me?”
“Does God still do big things?”
Christmas Past declares: Yes. He does.
God hasn’t stopped speaking. We have just grown accustomed to silence.
Mary: Courage that whispers “Yes” through trembling hands
Then Gabriel knocks on another door. And now the story turns extraordinary.
Mary is young. Poor. Female. In the ancient world, she is one of the least powerful people you could meet. And she is the one God has chosen to carry His Son?
The angel gives her a promise that defies biology, tradition, logic:
“You will conceive by the Holy Spirit. You will bear the Messiah.”
Mary has every reason to panic.
What will Joseph say?
What will her parents think?
What will her town assume?
Will anyone believe the truth?
Faith doesn’t remove those questions. Faith decides which voice gets the final say.
Mary’s response is not a theological treatise. Not a bargaining session. Not a request for guarantees. It is a surrendered heart:
“I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
Her yes becomes the doorway through which God steps into the world.
Before shepherds knew to search the skies… before angels filled the fields… before wise men saw a star… a teenage girl whispered,
“Yes, Lord.”
Christmas Past brings us two contrasting portraits:
• Zechariah shows us honest hesitation.
• Mary shows us bold surrender.
Both reveal this truth:
God doesn’t wait for perfect people.
God works through willing people.
The Christmas story is not a fairy tale of flawless saints. It is the story of a faithful God breaking into real human lives… the anxious, the tired, the confused, the overwhelmed.
That includes you.
So if you feel unqualified…
Perfect. You fit the cast list.
If you feel uncertain…
You’re in great company.
God doesn’t need your confidence.
Just your yes.
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CHRISTMAS PRESENT
The world is hungry for the Jesus living inside you.
December has a magic all its own. A cashier smiles and says, “Merry Christmas!” A stranger holds open a door. Someone buys gifts for a family they have never met. The world, for a brief moment, acts the way it was designed to act all along.
There’s something about remembering that a Savior was born that softens the human heart.
Have you noticed how quickly that can disappear? Somewhere around December 31, kindness gets shoved back into storage with the string lights.
Why do we wait 11 months to be the people we admire for 3 weeks?
Jesus did not come just to decorate winter.
He came to transform life.
The struggle for the pilot’s seat
There is a T-shirt that reads:
“If God is your co-pilot… switch seats.”
Most of us love the idea of God nearby.
Close enough to rescue us.
Not so close He takes over.
Co-pilot is a convenient arrangement:
“God, I’ll fly until there’s turbulence. Stay alert in case I need a miracle.”
Mary’s story asks us a tougher question:
What if God isn’t asking for your opinions…
He’s asking for control?
Not because He wants power over us…
but because He wants life for us.
The hardest Christian prayer may simply be:
“Your will, not mine.”
Letting go of the wheel feels risky.
Trust always does.
But trying to control life is like a toddler gripping the remote and thinking they’re piloting the airplane.
God is infinitely better at flying your life than you are.
>>The Present-Tense Jesus
Christmas Present means Jesus is still entering human stories today:
• He shows up in hospital rooms at midnight.
• He whispers peace into the anxious mind.
• He holds the grieving heart through one more night.
• He finds the prodigal right where the running ends.
The angels’ song was not a seasonal greeting.
“Peace on earth” is a mission statement.
You and I are invited to live like Christmas is always happening:
• Practice radical kindness in a cynical world.
• Notice the lonely and go sit beside them.
• Forgive the person who never earned it.
• Love people who can’t pay you back.
• Bless your enemies in a world armed with sarcasm.
Christmas Present is not lights on trees.
It is light in us.
Jesus’ question to Martha still rings through this season like a bell:
“I am the resurrection and the life… Do you believe this?”
If you do…
let the world see it.
Let your life be Bethlehem—
a place where Christ is visible.
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CHRISTMAS FUTURE
The story ends with joy and begins again with glory.
We talk a lot about the First Advent.
We rarely talk about the Second.
Yet from Genesis’ first promise to Revelation’s final shout, the Bible keeps pointing forward:
Jesus came once quietly.
He is coming again gloriously.
The Hope that rearranges priorities
Jesus said:
“They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and great glory.”
That is not poetic metaphor.
That is world history’s next headline.
The Second Coming is not a footnote.
It is the destination.
The early church didn’t just look back at the manger.
They looked ahead with anticipation.
Over 300 New Testament verses shout:
Be awake. Be ready. Be hopeful.
We live in a world that says:
“This is all there is. Better cling tight.”
Jesus says:
“This is just the beginning. Live free.”
He reminds us:
“In this world you will have trouble… but take heart, I have overcome the world.”
Every news cycle is a reminder:
We are not home yet.
Patience that comes from promise
People scoff:
“Where is this coming He promised?”
Peter answers:
“With the Lord, a thousand years is like a day.”
God is not slow.
God is patient.
He is delaying judgment because He wants more people in His family.
Every day Jesus waits is another day of mercy.
Christmas Future means:
This world is not the final chapter.
Brokenness does not get the last word.
Death does not get the last laugh.
Love wins.
Jesus reigns.
Hope stands.
The baby who cried in Bethlehem
will roar as King in the skies.
So we live now as people of the Coming Kingdom:
• With urgency, because time matters.
• With courage, because God is with us.
• With compassion, because others need Him.
• With joy, because we know how the story ends.
He came.
He comes.
He’s coming again.
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CONCLUSION
Christmas is more than nostalgia.
More than twinkling lights and familiar tunes.
It is the declaration that every tense of your life has a Savior.
Past:
God kept His promise even when the world was silent.
He stepped into history through a teenage girl’s yes.
Present:
Jesus steps into your life right now—into your fear, your stress, your joy, your ordinary days—and offers to take the wheel.
Future:
He is coming again to finish what He started… and to take you home.
So here is the Christmas question that matters:
What tense are you living in?
Are you stuck in regrets from the past?
Buried in stresses of the present?
Afraid of the future?
Christmas invites you to respond like Mary:
“I am yours, Lord. Lead my life.”
Zechariah needed time to find his voice.
Maybe you do, too.
But when his voice returned, he had a song no one could silence.
May God give you a song this Christmas—
a song of gratitude for what He has done,
a song of trust for what He is doing,
and a song of hope for what He will do soon.
Merry Christmas… in every tense.
