Advent Devotional - December 22, 2016

“Wondrous gift of heaven: the Father sends the Son / Planned from time eternal, moved by holy love / He will carry our curse and death He’ll reverse / So we can be daughters and sons”

-Who Would Have Dreamed

One of the great mysteries of Christmas is that this was not a “plan B” for God. The history of the Old Testament is not just a group of misfits and false starts that God eventually got tired of and scrapped to send Jesus. No, Ephesians 1:3-6 says that this was God’s good grace and plan for us far before we ever deserved it. From the foundation of the world, God determined that He would send His own Son, Jesus, the greatest gift He could ever give.

Think about that radical fact. Do you think that you are just a divine afterthought, a nuisance to God that He begrudgingly deals with? Brothers and sisters, that is not the case! Jesus becoming flesh for us is the sure and steady sign of God’s holy love, that He does indeed care for His people. Before time began, before you ever did anything good that you thought would make yourself worthy before God, God planned to make a way for you to be with Him!

From all eternity, God has planned this great reversal. The eternal, glorious Son becomes a tiny bawling baby. The curse that was meant for you and me is placed on His shoulders. The wrath that we deserved was instead poured out on Christ. And in Christ we find that our death sentence, our slavery to sin, is undone. Death is reversed and rebels are remade. The Son of God has come and welcomes us home as His beloved children. Brothers and sisters, fellow sons and daughters of the One True King, we have cause to sing!