Holiday Expectations

Friends, today I am honored to introduce you to Zane Wittrock, a former coworker of mine at the Dallas homeless outreach I worked at until this past Spring. Thankfully, he and I remain friends today.

A few weeks ago, I invited him to share an Advent reflection as part of our growing collaborative blogging project. He graciously agreed. I pray you are blessed by his offering.

Written by Zane Wittrock

‘Tis the season to be jolly, merry, and indubitably happy. That is the case for most folks and, I believe, an ideal aspiration in this season of remembering the advent of our Lord and Savior.

Ideal aspirations often fall short in a broken world. This reality certainly should not overshadow the merriment of the season, but I sincerely believe that to fully engage with these gifts, we have to remember the brokenness in this world and its effects on God’s creation.

I, myself, have experience in both sides of this reality. My childhood included a traditional Christian family that loved our God and loved each other. Not without our own issues, but my memories of the holidays are filled with the expected joy, peace, and happiness that a loving family provides. Praise be to God for those memories and for the countless families that get to experience that reality today. As wonderful as those experiences are in my mind, the stain of sin has seeped inside and tainted the lot.

My mother passed away from cancer 10 years ago. Since then, I have watched my family fall into pieces caused by the grief of loss.The memories of those times, kept sweet by the presumption of more to come, soured immediately in the face of the very real loss of someone deeply loved. The expectation of being together, happy, as a full family was destroyed. The once cherished memories became like a curse taunting my mind and oppressing my soul.

Christmas became the one time of the year when I was presented with the unescapable truth that Mom no longer lived on this Earth and that my family would never return to the glory of what it once was. A devastating truth that too many people are familiar with today.

We know that we serve a good and loving Father who loves us intensely. His desire for our lives transcends both our understanding and our expectations. I want to be clear, we do know empirically that God does desire goodness and love both in and through our lives. My contention is that discovering and tangibly walking out this desire of God in our lives requires us to overcome our expectations.

When we release our own expectations, even for goodness, we then begin to abide in Christ. I think the advent of Jesus beautifully unveils the reality of this truth. Since the introduction of sin, God has promised to defeat the serpent that introduced that sin into His creation. We see more evidence to deliver His people from oppression in God’s promise to Abraham, and; again, seen even more evidence of faith in God’s promise displayed by David throughout the Psalms.

Clearly, God’s chosen people had been reminded throughout their entire existence of the promise to deliver a King and Savior. By the time we get to the long awaited arrival of this promised savior, however, the shift from resting in God’s promise into creating an expectation of that promise is obvious and the consequences heartbreaking.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning thatnlight, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-14 NIV

Jesus came into this world, not as a powerful ruler or divine vigilante, but as a helpless baby born among the animals in a manger. His Kingdom was not made from borders and weapons but of hearts and souls. The arrival of our Savior was, by all standards, far outside the expectations of those who believed in His promise to come (John the Baptist being a special exception). As Jesus began His ministry, only twelve men responded to the calling to be a disciple, and yet; even among the men who were Jesus’ closest followers, the struggle to rest in his promise and not lean onto their own expectations was still present. All throughout Jesus’ travels and grand displays of gracious miracles, countless people continued to reject Him as the Messiah due to their own curated expectations of how God should be. These expectations caused a rift between the people that held them and their incarnate Savior standing right before their very eyes.

My encouragement to us all in this Christmas season is to push past our own expectations and lean fully into the promises of God, engaging intentionally with love. God lovingly waits with grace for those like myself that have fallen prey to assigning our own expectations over his presence. He is not vengeful towards our trespasses, but, rather sent His son to provide a path of redemption through relationship and sacrifice. Jesus has provided the ultimate sacrifice sufficient to redeem us of our sins. Let us sacrifice our own expectations this Christmas, for both the bad potential and the good possibilities resting fully in the new life God is creating within our hearts. A life in which we abide completely in the presence of a relationship with God. To those that have loving families together this season: celebrate, be glad, and count it all joy. To those that have experienced loss and are feeling the pain of brokenness this season: lament, be sad, and still, count it all joy. We celebrate Jesus’ arrival because it is a symbol of hope. Hope that beyond all expectation, God loves us dearly and will fulfill His promises to us absolutely.

“Heavenly Father, my prayer today is that no matter what reality we find ourselves this Christmas, that we would be able to hold close to the hope in your promise through Jesus, abiding fully in relationship no matter what context or circumstance. Allow us the grace to intentionally live out the hope we celebrate each year in this season. Protect those that lean too heavily on their own expectations and reveal our own shortcomings so that all who have received the blessing of salvation can engage fully with the joy in the hope brought by Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”

If you’re interested in joining us for our ADVENT2025 collaborative blogging project, please feel free to do so. The idea is simply to magnify and glorify Christ as we point people to Him. We’d love to have you share your Advent thoughts and experiences with us. Please be sure to tag your posts with ADVENT2025. There is plenty of room at the table.