Daily devotion – Christmas changed many things.
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…Isaiah 9:6
As a pastor for nearly 43 years, I have watched over a number of families have a love one pass either in the days leading up to Christmas and even on Christmas Day. For those, Christmas now had an added complication, a road bump that had to be driven over, grief and tears when others are wrapping or exchanging gifts.
Sometimes the loved one is a son or daughter, and the grief of a parent is one of the most difficult to behold. But even this pain and sorr0w our Heavenly Father can fully understand and acknowledge. How you say can God the Father know such a sorrow or pain?
Our opening Scripture, a prophecy given to Isaiah the prophet among many including Daniel 9:26 – “After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing…….”
Yes, the Child born in a manger, the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, would die and His Father would watch on as He uttered His last breath – Luk 23:46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Yes, God the Father knows what it is like to have a child die!
The power of death and the ravages of grief I have seen tear people down before my own eyes. Sin will lead us all to the grave eventually until Jesus comes again.
But Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ, reminds us that God came to bring comfort to those struck by grief, and to bring a halt to the all-consuming hold and sting that death brings. Jesus came to end all that!
As we approach Christmas 2023, perhaps you have been one who has had death and grief knock at your door. Let us remember that now we are not to sorrow as those who have no hope.
For the Child born in a manger in Bethlehem would put an end to the never before defeated foe that death is. For now Christ has dealt it a final blow and removed its hold and siege over us.
Our Heavenly Father gave His only Son Jesus, to suffer and die a cruel death so that we could be set free once and forever from death’s chains and so now we live with hope and expectation of blessed re-unions, and everlasting life, together once more!
Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.