Thursday, December 11, 2025

           In Luke 2, we find the traditional Christmas story inspired by the Holy Spirit as part of our Bible.  At the end of the story, Luke wrote, “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.”  These shepherds were the unlikely and unpredictable recipients of the good news shared by the angel of the Lord that Jesus had been born to Mary in Bethlehem.  The shepherds were unlikely and unpredictable because their profession was generally near the bottom rung of the social ladder.  Their daily work with sheep left them ritually unclean and usually marginalized by the rest of Israel.  No one wanted much to do with them.  But their ears were the first to hear that the hope of the ages had been fulfilled in the coming of God’s Son Jesus. 
            We focus our attention on the phrase “just as they had been told.”  God made no mistakes.  There was no exaggeration by the angel of the Lord.  Everything was just as God had planned—from before the foundations of the earth were laid.  1 Peter 1:20 says, “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.”  Nothing was left to random chance or accident.  God carefully planned and executed His approach to saving those who would come to Him in and through His Son. And this work was all God’s doing; we add nothing and bring nothing to His saving work.  
            In His coming, Jesus fulfilled the expectations of the law and the prophets.  Indeed, the entire Old Testament was preparing the way for the coming of Jesus as Savior.  In Mark 9, we have the transfiguration of Jesus that took place on a mountain top.  Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus.  The image of those three symbolized that the law (represented by Moses) and the prophets (represented by Elijah) found the fulfillment of their expectations in Christ alone.  Jesus perfectly fulfilled every prophecy about the coming Messiah.  By some counts, there are more than 350 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled in His birth, life, death and resurrection. 
            A mathematician and Christian named Peter Stoner calculated the uniqueness of Jesus and the certainty of Him being our Savior.  He suggested the likelihood that any one man would have fulfilled just forty-eight Old Testament prophecies about Jesus as being 1 in 10 to the 157th power.  That would be ten followed by 157 zeroes.  Frankly, no human would ever live to count that high.  But Jesus astounded the odds and mathematicians by fulfilling much more than forty-eight prophecies.  He fulfilled EVERY prophecy—just as these things had been told. 
            Nick Cady has written, “Whereas other religions offer ways to save yourself or endear yourself to God through doing actions, or keeping rules – the gospel message of the Bible is that you cannot save yourself, no matter how hard you try – but that God has done for you in Christ that which you could never do for yourself, in order to save you – because he already loves you.”  God defied the odds by sending His perfect Son to live, die and rise again, just as it had been foretold, to save and rescue lost and wayward sinners like us.  Like the Christmas shepherds of old, we stand amazed by this truth and the outpouring of God’s grace and love.  It is a story worth remembering and repeating so that we can thankfully and joyfully embrace the One who did everything necessary for us to be forgiven, redeemed and made new.  We can trust Christ today because He has kept and done everything that was foretold or planned in advance.  Christ, and Christ alone, is our One and only Savior.  Have a great Thursday!