Come to Me – Day 5
A glorious promise
Bible text(s)
This is a passage that is often read at Christmas time – a prophesy of the coming Messiah. Isaiah’s description of Jesus Christ, here, is perhaps the most revealing in the whole Old Testament. He tells his people living in exile, and us, that the Messiah will be born as a human child. Yet, this child will be the holy Son of God. He will be our ruler, our King. His names cover the whole of our lives:
as “Wonderful Counsellor”, he is all wisdom (see 1 Corinthians 1:30);
as “Mighty God”, he is all power (see Philippians 4:13);
as “Everlasting Father”, he is all love (see John 14:21);
as “Prince of Peace”, he is all calm (see Philippians 4:7).
This ancient prophecy reminds us that things do not happen randomly and that Christ did not just come into the world by chance. God chose that special moment in history as the centre of time itself. Everything else before Christ’s birth leads up to that sacred moment; everything that happens hereafter is eternally affected by it. Our world would not be the same if Christ had never been born. He came at a moment, time, and place where his life would be most effective in the world, for centuries. That was not chance; God chose that moment so that our own lives would be informed, reformed and transformed by our knowledge of Jesus today. In other words, everything has a purpose, a plan, a special time and a sacred meaning.
