Imagine Christmas in 1943. My parents were four years old then. Bing Crosby had recently recorded a brand new Christmas song which touched a tender place in the hearts of Americans. The haunting melody and some of the haunting lines in the refrain of that song made it the most requested song at USO shows in Europe and the Pacific theater. The most requested song was “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” You’ve heard or sung these haunting lines . . .

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light beams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

There’s a longing to be home for Christmas, isn’t there?! Soldiers, college students, hospital patients, traveling sales people long to be home for Christmas. But even when you’re home for Christmas, that longing doesn’t go away! C. S. Lewis, in his essay The Weight of Glory, talks about this “longing” that comes through moments of beauty and then through memories of those moments. Sometimes a book or a piece of music or a smell or a picture will trigger that longing. Christmas triggers it, too. The earliest Christmas album I can remember listening to, played on a record player (remember those!), was Mitch Miller’s Holiday Sing Along With Mitch. I hear that in 2007, and it takes me back to Christmas in 1967. But Lewis says that when you get there, that longing is not satisfied. It’s not the thing itself. You only find a reminder of something. So what is that “something” for which we long?

What we long for is life in the new heaven and new earth, that is, life in the unfiltered presence of God. Revelation 21:1-22:5 describes it. Dr. Grant Osborne makes this observation about Revelation 21:1-22:5 in his commentary on the book of Revelation: “Not just the Book of Revelation but the whole Bible has pointed to this moment.” What a moment that will be When you reach this moment, you will be home . . . home at last . . . home for Christmas. Yes, Revelation 21;1-22:5 describes the ultimate Christmas!

There will likely be a moment on this Christmas day when that longing appears. No matter how great your day is with your family, there will be a fleeting sense that the best is yet to come. You know what it is. You’ve preached it. Revelation 22:1-22:5 describes it. Now embrace it as you enter another year of life and ministry. We live, study, preach, and persevere in the certain hope that the best is yet to come. One day we will see Him face to face. One day we will be home . . . home at last . . . home for Christmas.