Hope in a Baby

In the first century, the Jews in Judea were being ruled by Romans. The people longed for freedom – political freedom as well as religious freedom. But Rome was just too strong. Some people gave up hope. Some joined an underground resistance movement. Others tried to be more religious, more worthy of God’s blessing. Everyone longed for God to do something.

As the Christmas story recounts each year, God started to do something—but he started in the smallest possible way—as an embryo in a young woman.  She gave birth to a Son and called him Jesus — the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means, God will save us.

God began fulfilling his promise with a child – to all appearances – conceived out of wedlock. God began fulfilling the hopes of his people in a way that they did not recognize. No one would have guessed that this baby was the answer to the nation’s hopes. A baby can’t do anything, can’t teach anyone, can’t help anyone, and can’t save anyone.

But God called that helpless baby a Savior. He knew what that baby would do. In that baby were all the hopes of Israel. Here was the light to the Gentiles; here was the blessing for all nations; here was the son of David who would rule the world; here was the child of Eve who would cleanse the world of sin and destroy the work of the devil. He was just a baby, born in a stable, his life in danger, but in his birth, everything began to change.

Jesus is the Savior of the entire world, but most people do not know it yet. Someone once said, “Jesus could be born 1,000 times, and it would do me no good, unless he is born in me.” The hope that Jesus gives the world does us no good unless we accept him as our hope. We need to respond to what Jesus has done for us.

Luke tells us that the angels sang when Jesus was born. It was a moment of triumph. The angels knew that victory was certain, because God had told them so. 

Isn’t it time for you to take part in that victory, to take the hand of love and forgiveness that God never stops extending to you and enter into the new life he wants to share with you?

Christmas Day is over, but the need for Jesus remains in the world. 

I’m Joseph Tkach, speaking of life.