God Keeps Promises
Christmas is a time when hope runs high. Children expect gifts they asked for. Adults wish that peace and love would reign. Many promises and resolutions are made for the New Year. Each year many of those expectations turn into empty promises.
However we can count on God to keep His promises. The promised birth of Jesus, the Messiah, is the focal point of the season for Christians. Many do not realize how long ago God first promised that a Redeemer would come nor how many seemingly impossible hurdles stood in the way. It was a promise to Adam and Eve that this Messiah would be sent. (Gen. 3:15) When the first two sons were born Eve thought one of them would surely fill that role, but when Cain murdered Abel that hope was dashed.
Abraham was promised a son through whom this Promised Son would eventually arrive but he was already 99 and his wife 89 with no son in sight. But Isaac did come. Grandson Jacob had 12 sons and one of them would begin the lineage through which the Messiah would come. Their behavior hardly was the kind that would encourage us to believe that would happen because they sold brother Joseph into slavery. God had warned Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in a foreign country for 400 years (Gen. 15:13). Just when it was time for a deliverer to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt Pharaoh decided to have all baby boys killed to avert the danger of revolt. Most of us know about the rescue of baby Moses from the Nile by the daughter of Pharaoh. Ironically, while seeking to avert the rise of a leader to deliver the Israelites he was raising him in his own palace. God keeps promises in spite of impossible odds.
A similar situation developed when finally the Promised Messiah was to be born. Herod massacred the male babies in Bethlehem but Joseph and Mary escaped to Egypt with baby Jesus. God continues to keep promises.
Ultimately the Jewish religious leaders in collusion with the Romans thought they could rid themselves of Jesus by crucifying Him, but that very action was the means by which God offers salvation to us. Even when things look impossible, God keeps His promise. We can sing with confidence, “Go, tell it on the mountain, … that Jesus Christ is born.”
Keeping on the sunny side,
Henry Wiebe