12/02/2024
"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." - Isaiah 9:6, about 700 years before it came to pass.
Emmanuel. God with us.
One look at today's world and you might wonder, "Is God really with us?" We see war, hatred, political strife, corruption, gross immorality, human trafficking, slavery, oppression, and violence (just to name a few things wrong with our world). It is enough to drive many to despair - and often does.
Occasionally, I hear it said that if things get much worse, Jesus will have to come. Certainly, as followers of our crucified and risen Lord, that promise is our blessed hope and he will indeed return in his own time. One day the trumpet will sound, the heavens will open, and Christ will come in the clouds to judge his enemies and gather his children to their eternal home. The kingdom will come and God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.
But even as we look forward to that hope being fulfilled, I think it wise to consider that even in this present evil age, God is with us and his will is being done on earth, even now. We may not feel his presence, but as they say, "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." Just because you can't see or feel it doesn't mean it isn't real.
The evidence is all around us if we would only open our eyes to see. At this very moment God's kingdom is present in our midst. It is found in the company of those who have embraced God's Good News of salvation from sin with all its deadly temporal and eternal consequences. That does not mean, however, that things in this life will be all hunky dory for those who come to Christ.
Jesus himself told us that we would have trouble, that indeed the world would hate us. For those who take their relationship with Christ seriously we see that to be the case, especially in other parts of the world where choosing to follow Jesus literally becomes a matter of life and death, even at the hands of one's own family or community.
Yes, the kingdom is already in our midst, hardly visible it seems, but there nonetheless. And the day is drawing ever near when it will arrive suddenly in all its power and glory - a new heaven and a new earth of such breath-taking beauty and wonder, but without everything that's wrong with the current broken version, which is but a shadow of things to come.
This perfect and stunning future will be populated with a vast host of wretched sinners, fallen creatures just like you and me. But they won't be wretched any more. They will be completely transformed, a work that began when they awakened to the truth of who Jesus of Nazareth is and realized what he has done for us all. These are the truly "woke." Having heard this Good News, they repented and turned to Jesus, because, you see, God saves no one in his sin, but he will save anyone from their sin. He loves to do that.
As God's works in progress, we find ourselves often frustrated and discouraged at the seeming slowness of our advancement and spiritual growth, but our Father in heaven promised he would finish the transformation he began in us when we first turned to Jesus and he is the One Who Cannot Lie. So, in a world filled with hopelessness, God's children have a confidence that will not fade away, though the heavens fall and the earth crumble around us.
The plan actually was laid out in eternity past and put into ex*****on two millenia ago in a little village called Bethlehem. We're about to celebrate it soon.
Merry Christmas.
