God speaks to my heart regarding a theme during some seasons of my life.  This Christmas season, He has been speaking to me about how Christmas is just a part of the story, His Story.  We are enamored by the sweetness of Christmas, the Baby Jesus, as well as all the cultural trappings that have wrapped themselves around Jesus’ birthday.  However, as the children at our church sang this past Sunday, the great “present” of Christmas is the future.

Because Jesus came over 2000 years ago, we know that God keeps His promises.  He had promised a deliverer for His Children to be set free from the bondage of sin and death since Abraham.  All of the Old Testament leads us to the anticipation of the coming of this Deliverer, His Son.  When Jesus arrived, many didn’t recognize that He was fulfilling so many of the promises the Father had made to His people, nor did they realize that the Son of God would eventually fulfill many more of God’s promises, by His suffering, death, and resurrection….many still don’t see this reality.  Mac Powell says it well in his song, “By His Wounds” that is based on Isaiah 53:4-5:

He was pierced for our transgressions
He was crushed for our sins
The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him
And by His wounds, by His wounds we are healed

He was pierced for our transgressions
He was crushed for our sins
The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him
And by His wounds, by His wounds we are healed

We are healed by Your sacrifice
And the life that You gave
We are healed for You paid the price
By Your grace we are saved
We are saved

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus

Our Father told us, through the prophet Isaiah, in the Old Testament, that our Deliverer would suffer to pay the price for our sins. God also promised His Son would come back to life after His death, so that we too could know that we can have new life in Him, cleansed from all our wrongdoings because of Jesus’ sacrifice.  God kept these promises.

So, we can now know that He, our Father, will keep the promises He made that His Son would come back for those of us who follow HIm, and that there would be a new Heaven and a new Earth as His Kingdom is fully established.  We can trust Him, and we can hope in Him because He is faithful to keep His promises.  The gift given to us each Christmas is the promise of eternity with Him.