Today’s Christmas Word Is … FULFILLED

Today’s Daily Devotion is about the fulfillment of God’s promise to send a Savior to be a light in our darkness.

This is a bit crazy, but imagine there was no Christmas, no celebration that God has fulfilled his promise. There would be a dreariness about life and a temptation to think that all is meaningless and without purpose. But thankfully, the promise has been fulfilled.

Why Christmas? The most important first step for anyone who is seeking a life of hope, peace, joy, and love is to admit that “I need help.” And Christmas is God’s gift that says he will provide the way. He knew that we could not achieve or earn our way to the blessed life. God’s plan was to wait for the right moment in which to enter our world, and show us the way, up close and personal.

God revealed in the Old Testament this promise of sending a redeemer. Isaiah the Prophet spoke of this promise 700 years before the birth of Jesus …

Isaiah 6:2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. …

6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

Many Israelites had been holding on to that promise. Some had given up. And many people in the rest of the world didn’t even know that a day of hope might be coming.

The original Christmas, the birth of Jesus, was the day the world had been waiting for. In Bethlehem, two thousand years ago, the promise was fulfilled. All of history was leading to that moment, and all time since looks back to that moment.

In the book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, from the C. S. Lewis series The Chronicles of Narnia, there was a spell over the land from the White Witch that made it always winter. But Aslan, the Lion, the Christ figure in those books, came to break that spell. It involved giving his own life as a ransom.

Just like that relentless winter in Narnia, our world lived in darkness, in need of a Savior. But Isaiah, in the passage above, announced well in advance that “those in darkness” would “see a great light.” A son would be born, whose reign and peace would have no end. There would be light in the darkness.

There is a secular song that speaks truth when it says that Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year.” And the Christmas carol, O, Little Town of Bethlehem, sums it up powerfully by saying, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

There is a lightness to Christmas, in some respects. We decorate, give gifts, laugh, sing, have a good time, and experience a peace that can hardly be described. But there is also a great seriousness, that this celebration is about the fulfilling of a promise that touches the depths of our souls and makes live worth living.

Not only has the world as a whole been sent a Savior, but we can even personalize it and say, “The hopes and fears of all my years” have been met in the Christ child tonight.

Merry Christmas from the Daily Devotion site “Today’s Word Is!”

Chaplain Mark Davis

(The Daily Devotion “Today’s Word Is” is published Monday – Friday.)