Today is a special day; first, because it is the first day of the week, The Lord's Day.  Second, it just so happens that this Lord's Day is also Christmas Day.  I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas, but first, I want to tell you why.

After the Fall of Man in Eden, God allowed a separation to exist between Himself and a broken creation.  But, because God truly desires a relationship with us, He revealed the first prophecy regarding the Redemption to Adam and Eve:

Genesis 3:14-15 NKJV  So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.  15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

God promised to crush the Devil through the Seed of the very woman he deceived.  There would come a day when a child who is not the offspring of any man (only a woman) would deal a death-blow to the Serpent.  Until this day, the Jewish people would have a complicated relationship with God, as both parties slogged through the problems brought on by human sin.  Worst of all, a majority of us humans, the Gentiles, would languish in the night of pagan ignorance until the Child came.  Paul describes our plight in this passage:

Ephesians 2:12 NKJV:  that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Before the Messiah came, we Gentiles were without Christ, having no part in the promises made to Israel through Abraham.  We were outsiders, without hope and without God in the world.  That is WHY I want to take a moment to celebrate, to express gratitude to God, and to wish you a Merry Christmas.  Jesus' other name is Immanuel, or, "God With Us" (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:21-13).

Before the time came, we had no hope of having a relationship with our Creator.  But ever since Jesus came, we know that in this dark, cold, broken world--God is with us.  Matthew writes in the beginning that God has arrived on Earth.  In the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus assures us that He’s here to stay:

Matthew 28:20b: "…And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

May you be blessed by the eternal presence of Christ this Christmas!