The Promise of Christmas
There is a popular song by Bill & Gloria Gaither entitled “The King Is Coming.” The King IS coming and when He comes, sin will be eliminated. Tears will be wiped from every eye. Disease shall be no more and even death will be eliminated from the human scene. This is the promise of Christmas. This is our hope. This is the Christmas star that lights our darkness. This is the assurance that a new day is coming, through the Messiah, whose name is called by Isaiah the prophet, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
Christmas should be a time of renewed hope — not hope in the status quo, not hope in a particular concept, but hope in Jesus Christ. Hope that God is still in the shadow of history, hope that despite our bungling and disobedience, God will bring order out of chaos.
Today, our imaginations go back 2000 years to that first Christmas when the world experienced 3 phenomena. First, there was a star. There were many stars in the sky, but none like this. This one shone with the aura and brilliance of another world. It was as though god had taken a lamp from the ceiling of heaven and hung it in the dark sky over a troubled world.
Second, there was a new song in the air. A world that had lost its song learned to sing again. With the coming of God in the flesh, hope sprang in the heart of man, and led by angelic beings, the whole world took up the refrain, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14).
And third, there was good news — the good news that, at last, a Savior had come to save people from sin. Jesus was the central theme of that first Christmas. The star, the song, the gifts, the joy, the hope, the excitement — all were because of Him.
 This is God’s gift of Christmas:

                    * The cradle — His Son;
                    * The Cross — His life;
                    * The crown — His coming eternal Kingdom.
                    But . . . A gift, to be complete, must be received!

“Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His Name,
He gave the right to become children of God.”
                                            (John 1:12)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!