Bethlehem
, many wonderful things had occurred. God had created the world and made it wonderfully. God had made covenant with saints like Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. He had sent prophets like Daniel, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Before Jesus Christ, however, the sum and substance of every promise was one that waited for ultimate fulfillment. God’s people longed for their sins to be once and for all put away; they longed for an end to oppression; they longed for a return to the perfect communion that our first parents experienced in the Garden before the Fall. They longed for all of these things, but the world that they saw before Christ was full of sin, oppression and death. How would—how could—God fulfill His promises in a world so full of darkness and corruption? We know the answer to the question. . . .
We know that salvation came in a way that fulfills all of our deepest desires and that caught off guard almost all who claimed to be waiting for it in the day that it came. Too often, I fear, we see the darkness in the world. Remember, it is not nearly as dark as it might seem. All of the great riddles have been answered. Death will not hold dominion over the sons of Adam forever. The Creator has been made man. The Creator cries out as a hungry newborn child. From outside this darkness, a light is coming to answer all of the deepest needs of a fallen world. O, Come; O, Come Emmanuel and Ransom Captive
Israel
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