My son and his wife are expecting their fourth child, our fifth grandchild. When that child is born the parents will hold the baby in their arms and their hearts will be filled with love and excitement. They’ll be overwhelmed with expectation.
Who knows what the baby will grow up to be! What this person we don’t even yet know will achieve! The baby will come with such promise! Such potential! We don’t know exactly how it will play out. Yet we know the newborn will arrive with promise.
Most every new parent sees their child through eyes of promise. They may not have a specific promise, but they just know the child will be someone special.
So, the promise that comes with newborn babies is more about possibilities than guarantees. But there is an exception.
When a virgin teenage girl named Mary and her husband Joseph held a newborn in Bethlehem at the time of the Roman Census ordered by Quirinius their hearts were filled not only with possibilities but with guarantees, with promises conveyed by angelic messengers of Jehovah God.
In their case, promise was more than something possible; it was specific and certain: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest;” and “the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:32-33) That’s what Mary’s messenger had said. Joseph’s had said to him: “He will save His people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21) Pretty specific promises.
Those weren’t the first promises given about this Bethlehem newborn. Isaiah was God’s human messenger to the Hebrew nation centuries before, “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6) And “He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12).
Jesus’ birth was also something not many others’ have ever been: fulfillment of a promise. Or promises I should say. Isaiah was specific in his foretelling of circumstances around the Christ child’s arrival: “A virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Micah, about 700 years before Christ, specified the town of the coming Messiah’s birth: “out of you, Bethlehem” (Micah 5:2)
So, the newborn Christ was both proceeded and succeeded by promise, promise of His coming and promise of His life’s accomplishment. Even in our day, those who believe in Him are living out His promise.
And the fulfillment of His promise will continue throughout eternity. “Of His kingdom there will be no end…He will save His people from their sins.”
The Christmas Newborn’s promise fulfilled forever and ever. Amen!
