Advent Reflection: The Promise of a Savior
The Promise of a Savior
By Christy Hanna
“Promise” — A declaration of assurance that one will do a particular thing or that a particular thing will happen.”
“I promise!” This phrase has a ring of solemnity. Why do children say sincerely, “You promise??” when a serious matter is being decided… like a little girl bringing that pack of gum to her friend the following day at school? What makes a promise so hopeful and yet sometimes desperate if it might not be fulfilled?
We all long for assurance and hope. It’s in our God-given nature to want adventure, but to know that it will all work out in the end. I want to trust in the word of my authorities, friends, people I voted for… that they will keep their word. We want to know that our boss will promote us as he promised, that our spouse will be faithful to our wedding vows, and that our parents will be people we can count on.
This season of Advent is a remembering that God followed through on His promise. For thousands of years, God gave His chosen people prophecies and promises about the One coming to save them. Over 300, actually.
The prophecies told of the place the Savior would be born… Micah 5:2, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”
Additionally, God told of the virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
There were prophecies about Jesus being speared in His side, none of His bones being broken, of being betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver, that His lineage would be from the line of David, even of an escape into Egypt that was fulfilled when Jesus’s parents made the decision to move there for the safety of their young child.
The incredible thing is, if only eight of these prophecies were to have been fulfilled in Jesus’s life “by chance,” the mathematical probability of it happening are 10 to the 17th power. In other words, one hundred quadrillion. Jesus’s prophesy-fulfilling life was no accident.
To help us understand that ginormous number, it would be this… the chances of Jesus fulfilling just eight of the details foretelling His promised coming, one would have to take 100 quadrillion silver dollars and put them within the geographic boundaries of Texas. The silver dollars would cover the entire state and be piled two feet high. Only one of the coins has been marked with an X. A person would have to then be blindfolded, put in the center of the state, and walk in any direction he wants for as long as he wants.
The probability of Jesus fulfilling just eight of the prophecies from the Old Testament are the same as our friend in Texas randomly choosing the marked silver dollar from a two foot pile covering the state. That is wild. And Jesus not only fulfilled eight; in his birth and life, he fulfilled over 300. Yes, His coming was a purposeful, fulfilled promise by the God of the universe.
What’s the point? This time in our world and in this Christmas season of preparing and planning, let’s remember that the God who loves us is a promise keeper. Though He doesn’t promise to shield us from hard and sorrowful things in this life, He promises that He is with us and working things together even when we don’t understand or are grieving.
What He did promise was that He would come to save us from our sins. And He did. He promises that He will come back a second time to bring the new kingdom and new earth. And He will. And He promises to never leave us or forsake as we move through this life, living out His purposes for us… as parents, teachers, plumbers, coaches, friends, spouses, sons and daughters. And He is. While we shop, wrap, and decorate our homes with beautiful lights, let’s think on the trustworthiness of our God, who keeps His all of His precious promises.