The Promise of Christmas

God moves in the midst of chaos.  He shines when everything seems the darkest and, with God, there is hope in even the deepest despair.  It is part of who he is…it is what he does…and it is why we can place our hope in him even as we approach the most ominous of valleys.

Our God not only moves in the midst of chaos, but he was moving long before there was even a hint of turmoil.  Before darkness had a name, God was speaking light.  He was speaking peace when despair was not even a thought, and the valley shimmered in the distance.

And when, in an instant, the perfection of his creation was shattered, God gave us the promise of Christmas.

With one act of disobedience in Eden the cosmos was fractured, from the most distant galaxies known only to the Creator, to the DNA strands he used to carefully weave the creatures who would occupy his most treasured planet.  The damage rippled from the tiniest atom to the largest star.  All the beauty that appeared when God spoke from somewhere deep within the glory of his imagination was shattered and broken through the rebellion of the beneficiaries of his magnificent work.  Creation was fractured.  Man’s relationship to God was fractured.  Adam’s relationship to Eve was fractured.  The absolute order of all things became foggy and muddled.

But God moves in the midst of chaos. 

 

Standing in the devastation caused by sin, God makes a promise he resolved to make somewhere in the eternity before creation.  He would pass a judgment onto the woman.  He would pass a judgement onto the man.  But before he chastises them, he gives them hope for the future.  First, God curses the physical serpent:

 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.   Genesis 3:14 (ESV)

Then God curses the spiritual serpent…the liar…the deceiver…the seducer…Satan… with the words:

 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.”  Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

In that curse is the promise of Christmas.  In that curse is the promise of the cross and the promise of the resurrection.  With those words God was promising to do what he had determined to do long before he spoke anything into existence.  The Creator himself would take on flesh, crush the enemy and redeem his people.

Our Father planned it from eternity.  He promised it even as he felt the pain of man’s rebellion echo through the cosmos.  He spoke it before he led man from Eden into a life of toil on the earth, “A woman is going to have a son, and he will crush Satan along with the death and destruction he has caused.”

 But when the fullness of time had come….God sent forth his Son….born of woman… Galatians 4:4 (ESV)

In God’s time, when everything demanded by his perfect timeless plan was in place, the Creator humbled himself to do what only he could do.  He placed himself into the hands of his rebellious creation, and set out to fix, restore and redeem what had been lost in the garden.

…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…John 1:14

With that, the promise of Christmas became a reality on that most sacred and holy of nights.

^….And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Luke 2:7 (ESV) 

To be sure, that is not the end of the story.  It is not the end of the promise.  But it is a beautiful reminder of the depths our Father will go to move in the chaos, to shine in the darkness and to bring hope even in the deepest despair.