There could hardly be a better time to celebrate Christmas Eve than on Sabbath Eve, could there? As the sun set one evening in Bethlehem long ago, the Sun of Righteousness arose, with healing in His wings! As the sun sets this evening, the “dawn of redeeming grace” is still shining out across this earth.
What an awesome miracle! He who “counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,” had become as helpless as a newborn kitten. How His parents must have hovered with protective vigilance over that manger! How the angels of God, glorious to the shepherds though apparently invisible in the stable, must have stood guard. This tiny Gift must not be harmed. This helpless human Infant must be defended at all costs.
Everything in human history hinged on This: this Baby must be fed, He must be kept safe, He must be permitted to grow up and become a Man. And that Man must fulfill His destiny as the Lamb of God. Because one day, He would stand before His Father in whose mighty hand was a Book of destiny, close sealed with seven seals, and the Lamb must take that Book—or all mankind was doomed.
What a story! How our souls love to remember its origins there in Bethlehem. It’s not for nothing that so much tender and triumphant music has been written about it. It’s no mere chance that some of the world’s greatest art has been given to this Subject. He is worthy!
And yes, tonight He is worthy! Hallelujah, what a Savior! Let’s take time to remember it this evening. It’s all written out for us in the Gospels, and we could do little better than to turn there and read it aloud together, wherever we may be gathered in our homes. He did become a Baby. He did grow up to Manhood. He did go to the Cross. He did shed His blood. And He has taken that Book—because He paid for it through a lifetime of fulfilling the prophetic words, “Lo, I am come—in the roll of the book it is written of Me—to do Thy will, O God.”
And nothing ever invented by the Serpent can undo His triumph. The Lamb of God “taketh away the sin of the world,” even now. He. Is. Worthy!
Amen, and Amen, forever and ever. Let us worship Him together.
