Preperation for Jesus

I don’t know if any of you might have noticed or not but there is a major holiday coming up. Some of you may have been prepping for this holiday for a while. You may have bought and wrapped presents, planned parties, decorated a tree or even climbed up on a house to put lights around it. I have to admit that sometimes I think we go overboard preparing for Christmas. I think we buy too many gifts and put up too many lights. Then again lavish preparation for Christmas is a longstanding tradition.

Have you ever thought about the first person to prep for Christmas. Well, not a person in the sense that he is like us but a person in the sense that we are made in his image. That’s right, I am talking about God.

So God made a planet, and on this planet he created two people. He gave them all the plants for food (except one that is) and gave them charge over all the animals and all the land. It still belonged to him but he gave them and their descendants rulership over it and the first thing we went and did was mess it up. So God made a plan to fix it.

Now God has no limitations but the limitations he imposes on himself. He is extremely consistent and constant. So when God gave land he gave it in the same way he always had, when he worked he worked within the system he had built. Everything had to be done the right way and everything had to be done legally according to God’s own law. So he did.

Do you remember the story of Ruth. She was a foreigner and without any means to support herself or her mother in law and she threw herself on the mercy of a rich man named Boaz. Interestingly enough she became one of the ancestors of Jesus Christ. But when she approached Boaz he said something that is strange to us. He said there is one relative closer than I am and he has first dibs.

Ruth 3:12–13 NASB95

“Now it is true I am a close relative; however, there is a relative closer than I. “Remain this night, and when morning comes, if he will redeem you, good; let him redeem you. But if he does not wish to redeem you, then I will redeem you, as the Lord lives. Lie down until morning.”

Boaz said he wanted to redeem Ruth but someone had a stronger claim. What was he talking about, he was talking about Jewish law. The law established by God himself in Leviticus.

Leviticus 25:23–25 NASB95

‘The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. ‘Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land. ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold.

So if a Jew became so poor that he lost his property it was up to his nearest relative to buy back the property in his name, if that relative could not or would not do so it fell to the next relative and so on. Now this land belonged to God and was in the charge of the Jewish people, just like the land God gave Adam and Eve. It was not to be sold or taken away but it was to be managed or ruled over by those that God had given it to, if they messed it up then the next nearest relative who could should redeem it. That means they should restore the land to what it was supposed to be, make it fruitful and good again.

All of which brings us to Christmas. Generations later, we had messed it all up. Neither the land or the people were anything like what we were supposed to be and we had been trying for generations to restore what we had lost, but it was beyond us. We could not redeem the land and we could not redeem ourselves. So we needed a redeemer.

Now according to the law of God the redeemer needed to be the nearest relative of the one to be redeemed who had the means to do so. Now if you were going to redeem all of mankind who would be our nearest relative? It would not be God because his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. In fact his ways are so far above our ways that we cannot understand them or him for that matter. It would have to be one of us, a person, a human, someone born into the human family and part of the human race so that they would be one of our relatives, one of us.

Therein lies the problem. There was no human being who had the means to redeem us. The only one who earned redemption for himself would be someone who was perfect, someone who didn’t need redemption. The problem was that there wasn’t anyone like that. At least not any human being. None of us were perfect and none of us could do it on our own. We could not even redeem ourselves more or less earn redemption for the whole human race. The only one who was good enough for that was God himself. But we already discussed that God is not a human, not a near relative, so how can this impossible dilemma be solved.

In order to find a near relative to humanity who is also perfect you must find the perfection of God combined with the humanity of man. You must find a God-man.

So the holy spirit came down and impregnated a woman. A child was born who was both God and man. A child whose father was God and so he had no sin. He neither had inherited sin from Adam, because he was the son of God not Adam nor did he ever commit sin himself. For the first time someone was born into the human race who was perfect, someone who had earned the right to be redeemed for himself but did not need to be redeemed. He had more than he needed, he had earned redemption that he did not need and so he had something to spare. For the first time a man had been born who could redeem what was lost according to the law established by God.

Matthew 1:18–25 NASB95

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.

God began preparing for the birth of Jesus before he even made the earth and before he placed Adam and Eve in it. Before he gave the law to Moses he knew how he would fulfil that law. Before man sinned, before we fell, before the first problem occured God was prepared. Jesus the God-man was planned from the first. The first Christmas was planned before the first day of creation. God placed the lights in the heavens that far outstrip any Christmas lights we might hang and he planned the first Christmas gift. A gift far greater than any you will open this year, the gift of Jesus Christ, the son of God, who was both God and man. The one who came to redeem us. To restore us to what we were always meant to be. To make things right and to undo the wrongs.

In a way we are still in the celebration of that first Christmas. From the day that Jesus revealed himself to us, the day that he started his ministry on the earth we have been in the process of opening God’s greatest Christmas present. Over 2000 years later we still haven’t torn away all of the paper and looked in every corner of the box, there are still things we don’t know or understand about God’s greatest gift. There are many who have never accepted this gift, never even opened taken the bow off the box. Maybe it is because they don’t like the card attached to the gift, to man, love God. Maybe it because they just can’t believe that it is real, maybe it is because they don’t think they really deserve it.

The thing is though, that none of us ever deserve it. You don’t deserve a gift, you can deserve a reward, you can deserve a payment but a gift is something that is given just because the giver decided to. Sometimes we give a gift because we think we should or because we feel like we must but the best gifts, the gifts that make us feel all warm and loved inside are given because someone loves us. Some of the best gifts I have gotten were not the most expensive but the most heartfelt. When a child I love and who loves me saves their money or takes the time to make something just for me it doesn’t matter if I need it or if I wanted one it just matters that I was important to them and they took the time to do something for me because they loved me. Some of my best gifts have been things I didn’t want or need but they were special because of who gave them to me and the love that they showed. Of course I also have enjoyed some gifts that I really needed at the time.

Of course the best gift of all would be a gift that you desperately needed given to you by someone who obviously love you with their entire heart. That would be the best of both worlds. That is the kind of gift that Jesus is. We desperately needed to be redeemed, we have made a mess of our lives and of the world around us and it is obvious that we cannot fix it. So we need redemption, we need someone to come in and make it all right and we have proven time and time again that we cannot do it on our own. How wonderful that the someone who can do that, the someone who has the ability to make everything right, to restore everything to what is should be is also the very one who loves us more than anyone else ever loved us, or ever could. The very one who gave his own life for us. Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

Today we are still unwrapping his gift. The entire time between when Jesus gave his life for us and when he returns to take up his throne and rule over the world is just one big Christmas. There will come a time when Jesus comes back. There will come a time when Christmas day is over and it is time to see who has received the gift and who has not. There will come a time of judgement and a time of trial. We don’t like to think of that at Christmas time because we think of it as a downer. It makes us sad and takes away from the party like atmosphere of Christmas. It doesn’t have to. Jesus is a Christmas present given to all men, to anyone and everyone who will respond. Anyone who will reach under the tree and take the present with their name on it and open it up can be saved. But not everyone will. This Christmas there will be those who do without. There will be some gifts left unopened because relatives or friends, for whatever reason did not show up. There are always the lost and the lonely on Christmas, always those that are left out and seem forgotten.

God has made it his job to make sure that everyone receives the gift of redemption, the gift of Jesus Christ, that is why Jesus waits, that is why the judgement, the making right, the setting straight, the final step of the redemption has not been completed. Christmas has gone on for over 2000 years in order to give everyone a chance to open their gift. Have you opened yours, has the God given Christmas present of redemption been taken out of the box in your life, opened up and used? Is there someone in your life who desperately needs that gift. What better time than now to hand it to them.

You and I are not the gift, we cannot redeem and we are not qualified to restore but we can pass the gift along. In our family the adults and older kids sit around the living room while the younger kids climb under the tree and get out the presents. They read the cards and deliver the presents to whoever’s name is on the card. Shouldn’t that be us. Taking the present that God has given to every one of us and finding the unopened ones under the tree, reading the name tags and delivering salvation to those that have not yet opened their gift. You may not be Santa, you certainly are not Jesus, but you can at least help deliver the gifts. That is your part. So be excited, rush under the tree and see whose present is still unopened, then take it to them with a smile. Let’s not leave anyone out this Christmas.