I don't want a lot for Christmas
There is just one thing I need
I don't care about the presents
Underneath the Christmas tree
I just want you for my own
More than you could ever know
Make my wish come true
All I want for Christmas is you

It wouldn’t feel like Christmas without a Christmas playlist. And it’s no surprise that since its release in 1994, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ appears in, if not tops, every list of best-selling or favourite Christmas songs. Maybe, it’s on your playlist too. Walk into any shop at this time of year and I guarantee you’ll hear it, at least once, if not, many more times! And if you’re anything like me, its extraordinarily sticky tune means it replays in your head many more times afterwards.

If you could turn down the bop and focus on the lyric, you would appreciate just how funny it is that our shopping centres choose to blast it at full volume, on repeat. For sure, it affirms that Christmas is a season of wanting and waiting… but not for things that can be bought and put underneath the tree. Even this crowd-pleaser is focused on the coming of one special person.

The word ‘advent’ is derived from the Latin word, adventus, meaning ‘coming’, which is a translation of the Greek word, parousia.

The word ‘advent’ is derived from the Latin word, adventus, meaning ‘coming’, which is a translation of the Greek word, parousia. That first Christmas, Israel was wanting and waiting for the coming of one special person too – not your “baby” but a baby, Emmanuel, also named Jesus. As joyous as his birth in Bethlehem was, it inevitably draws us to another greater coming, Christ’s glorious return. And this time, it’s not just Israel but the whole world that waits in eager expectation. This is the advent that Isaac Watts wrote about in his hymn, ‘Joy to the World’ – not his past, humble coming of the manger but his future, triumphant coming on the clouds.

In a week, there’ll be a newly empty chair at our Christmas table. What about you? Perhaps this Christmas, more than any other for a long while, we’ll remember that even our best days are painfully incomplete – that we are, in fact, still waiting. Like those men and women at the first advent, who waited patiently for God to keep his promises, we too live in certain hope for what we do not yet have. 

…we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies…we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:23-25

Join us each day next week, as some of the EQUIP team reflect on the gospel of Luke’s playlist – Mary’s song, Zechariah’s song, the angels’ song and Simeon’s song.

Fun fact, Mariah Carey reportedly co-wrote her iconic song in just 15 minutes. Why not take 15 minutes today to ‘sing’ some of your own words – what do you want for Christmas?

ISOBEL LIN

Isobel is married to Peter and they have three daughters. They love their church family at St Barnabas, Fairfield and Bossley Park.

Isobel likes the stirring minor keys and rich Biblical language of ‘O Come O Come Emmanuel’.