Christmas is all about the presence of God. The entire premise of this blessed holiday is the observance of the fact that God sent His Only Son into the world so that everyone who would believe in Him could spend eternity with Him in Heaven. Isn’t it amazing to know that God already had a Son, but He still wanted to have a family? Even more remarkably, He wanted fallen, fallible people like us to be a part of that family. Even if you feel like the Christmas season is a stressful time of year, it is certainly worth taking the time to celebrate the fact that God did what had to be done so we could have a true relationship with Him.
The first Advent celebration took place hundreds of years ago. For centuries, the Church has spent the weeks leading up to Christmas in preparation and personal evaluation concerning the true meaning of Christmas.
Yes, the Advent season has been underway for several weeks, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too late for you to take part. If you attend a church that takes part in Advent, you’ve probably already been spending time reflecting and meditating on what the true meaning of the season is. However, there are plenty of congregations that don’t take part in a designated Advent celebration. There’s nothing in the Bible that mandates Advent, so this doesn’t mean that your church is in error. However, it also doesn’t mean that you can’t participate in Advent.
While there are plenty of traditional methods of observing Advent, there are no Scriptural mandates that dictate how you should go about it. Today, if you’re simply looking for ways to observe God’s presence during the Advent season, spend some time reflecting on these verses.
The First Promise
Genesis 3:15 (NLT)
“And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
The Bible is filled with God’s promises. Dating back to the Old Testament, God made thousands of promises to His people in Scripture. However, the first promise of God is found in Genesis 3:15. When you read these verses, the first sin had just been committed. Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit because Satan had deceived them.
God showed up in the Garden, not to punish Adam and Eve, but to take the necessary steps to rectify what they had done. Thousands of years before Christ was born, shortly after the world had been created, God made the first Christmas promise. When He declared that the seed of woman would crush the head of the serpent, He was making the first declaration that Christ would be born to a virgin.
During Advent, spend some time thanking God that He immediately responded to the first sin by creating a path to redemption for us.
The Season of the Miraculous
Isaiah 7:14 (NLT)
All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).
In 1958, a world-renowned math professor named Peter Stoner calculated the odds of the Messianic prophecies found in the Old Testament being fulfilled. Stoner started by gathering the 108 Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament. Based on his studies, the odds of one person fulfilling even 8 of those 108 prophecies was 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. That comes to a one in one-hundred quadrillion chance that one person would fulfill eight of the prophecies from the Old Testament. Christ fulfilled all 108, resulting in odds that cannot be represented in numbers that we have access to. Truly, the life of Christ and His ability to fulfill each of the Old Testament prophecies is miraculous.
The prophecies surrounding the life of Christ were not given in the order that He fulfilled them, but the prophecies surrounding His birth are obviously the ones that we focus on during this time of year. Roughly 700 years before Christ was born, Isaiah declared that a virgin would give birth the Messiah.
Obviously, such an idea seemed impossible. In fact, to our mortal minds, it still seems impossible. How can a virgin give birth? The way that Christ came into the world was miraculous, and the Christmas season serves as a powerful reminder to us that the miraculous is still possible because of our God’s limitless nature.
Do you need a miracle? God still specializes in the impossible.
God Uses the Little Things
Micah 5:2 (NLT)
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf.
Bethlehem was not an important city in Biblical times. Its location precluded it from being a center of industry, as it didn’t provide a port for ships to pull into. Its size kept it from being a center of government activity. The fact that Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem probably had some people questioning his thought process.
The fact that God chose to send His Son into the world in Bethlehem is a very telling part of God’s mindset. He isn’t impressed with the “big” and “flashy” things of the world. Instead, He loves using the little things. There are many Bible verses that speak to the fact that God uses the “small” things to accomplish big purposes. Christ’s birth in Bethlehem is just another example of that.
The fact that Christ was born in one of the smallest towns mentioned in the Bible reminds us that God doesn’t require us to bring a lot to the table. Instead, He longs to use us exactly as we are.
The World Needs Peace
Isaiah 9:6 (NLT)
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Finally, the Christmas season is the declaration that peace has come. If you read about the conversation that the angels had with the shepherds on the night that Christ was born, you will notice that the angels said that Christ had come to bring “peace on earth” and good will to all men.
Isn’t it safe to say that this world needs peace? Obviously, when we think of peace in the context of our modern society, we think about the idea of world peace which would be the absence of wars. While there are some wars that are constantly in the headlines, the United Nations reports that there are more than 80 current wars and conflicts going on around the world. Christ’s arrival didn’t put an end to conflict. Instead, the peace that came into the world is a personal peace.
Christ’s arrival made it possible for us to have peace with God. When He was born, the door was opened for us to enter into a personal relationship with God. When we have peace with God, we recognize that everything in this world is temporary, but our relationship with Him is eternal.
A Closing Prayer:
Heavenly Father, help me to fully prepare myself for the spiritual ramifications of this time of year. I know the true meaning of the season, and I don’t want to get so caught up in the other things that are going on that I fail to properly acknowledge His birth. Thank You for Your promises and everything that this season truly means. In Christ’s name, Amen.