Waiting for Presents

Kids Guessing at Presents

Kids guessing and feeling at Christmas presents

For thousands of years before Jesus, God was giving out sneak peeks. Glimpses of the shape what would be discovered Christmas morning. Let’s travel that journey this morning.

We are familiar and have heard much this morning of the prophecies given to Mary and Joseph in the days and months leading up to the birth. But even strangers like the Maji and knew the baby would be born in Bethlehem. Why, because 300 years before, God gave this hint through the prophet Micah:

Micah 5:2 ESV

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

It goes back even earlier than that. 700 years before Jesus, God gave this hint through the prophet Isaiah. Through Isaiah we hear so MUCH about what Jesus’ life would be like, but also that he would be born… well here:

Matthew 1:22–23 ESV

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Quoting Isaiah 7:14

And the hints go back even further. Jesus, the King born to us, born in the line of David, a descendant promised to David 1000 years before he was born!

2 Samuel 7:12–13 ESV

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

The Christmas list, that desire for a Savior and God’s promise of a Savior born to us goes all the way back. Job, possibly the earliest written book in the Old Testament, Job famously lifts up his eyes in the very middle of his suffering and says:

Job 19:25–27 ESV

For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

All the way back to the garden. From the very first words of God following the fall, we get this promise of a Savior. Of rescue. Of final victory.

Genesis 3:15 ESV

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Could it even go further back then that? When did the story of Christmas begin? The idea of the Son of God?

John 1:1–3 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

History is His-story

This is what we celebrate at Christmas. For thousands of years, for all of history all creation waited with eager expectation to open their Christmas present, for Immanuel, for Noel, for God with us. For that silent-or-not-so-silent night.

And He comes, filling everyone of over 300 Messianic prophecies. Rooted in history, in prophecy, in proof and evidence, witnessed and confirmed, all the way through death and resurrection to rescue and redeem a fallen world and a fallen me. A broken you.

And even as they waited for thousands of years, so we wait with eager expectation for His coming return. We are the bride, the church of Christ, with candle lit… making sure that we are prepared today and everyday for His coming return.