During this special time of year, we see many beautifully wrapped presents displayed in store windows and under Christmas trees. Soon we will be buying and wrapping gifts for our family members and friends. As we have seen over and over again in this special Christmas Devotional Study, God is the greatest giver of all because of His extravagant love! He gave the greatest gift to the world when He gave His only begotten Son.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Consider the unique wrapping surrounding God’s Gift. And as you do, please remember that God’s great Messianic Gift to the world came as the direct fulfillment of over 2,500 prophecies! The precise fulfillment of these prophecies in precise detail is one of the greatest proofs for the supernatural origin of the Bible. No other religious book in history can make this claim. In His First Advent, Jesus fulfilled some 2,000 of these prophecies. The other 500 are being fulfilled in this very “End of the Age” that you and I are living in.

It has been computed by scientist and statistician Dr. Peter Stoner that the possibility that all of these prophecies being fulfilled by chance are 1 in 10 to the 2,000th power! That’s a lot of coincidences. Not a chance! It takes more “blind faith” to believe that these prophecies were randomly fulfilled by Jesus than it does to believe that He was indeed God’s Messiah who had come in the exact “…fullness of time” to fulfill every one of God’s promises!

With that in mind, let’s turn to God’s special gift-wrapping for this Messianic Gift He gave to the world. First of all…

1. Jesus was wrapped in Hope:

Through prophecy God had been pointing to the coming of His Messiah. These hundreds of prophecies given over thousands of years all pointed to Jesus. They were the hope of the Old Testament saints who were called “prisoners of hope”.

Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. (Zechariah 9:12)

The fact that Jesus perfectly fulfilled these prophecies proves that He was the long-awaited and hoped-for Messiah of God!

2. Jesus was wrapped in History:

As we have seen in detail in earlier studies, God’s gift was given at exactly the perfect time in human history. As Paul said: “In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son…” (Gal. 4:4). Doctor Luke, as an accurate historian, recorded that Jesus was born “…in the days of Caesar Augustus…while Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Lk. 2:1-2). Unlike other religions that are partly or wholly based in mythology, God’s gift is securely wrapped in history! The Christian faith is firmly anchored in fact – indisputable historic facts.

Next…

3. Jesus was wrapped in Humanity:

As John records: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). Jesus was neither God masquerading as man nor man feigning to be God. He was the unique God-Man of history. “In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). Belief in Him as the One Mediator between God and Man (I Tim. 2:5) is essential for our salvation. And, the unique confession that “…Jesus Christ has come in the fleshfrom God” (I Jn. 4:2) is the dividing point between religions and the point of discernment between the “spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (I Jn. 4:6).

But the Incarnation did not end with Jesus. God wants to continue to clothe Him in our humanity. Through His indwelling Holy Spirit, God’s intention is to continue to incarnate Himself in the lives of people like you and me! There is a wonderful example from the famous “Passion Play” that takes place every decade in Oberammergau, Germany. This portrayal of the life, death and resurrection of Christ has been going on since 1633. The most interesting thing about this play is that there are no professional actors. The local people of the town play all of the parts – including Jesus. Every day Jesus and all of the participants of the Advent can be seen in the local stores and shops of this little German town. And that’s the way it should be! God wants to continue the Incarnational Story of Christ in your life…your family…your business…your job. That’s what Christmas is really all about.

Finally…

4. Jesus was wrapped in Humility:

Even though prior to His incarnation Jesus “…existed in the form of God” because He was and is God, He did not hold onto His glory and majesty as God. He laid aside heaven’s splendor and “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and…humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of…death on a cross” (Phil. 1:5-8). And in the spirit of Christmas, the Bible exhorts us to imitate Jesus and “…put on humility” (Col. 3:12). If we want to really celebrate Christmas and be Christ-like – we too must be wrapped in humility.

Jesus Christ, therefore, was distinctively and uniquely wrapped in hope… history…humanity…and humility. By this all men could know that He was indeed “Immanuel, God with us” (Matt. 1:28). And just like God was wrapped in the humanity of Jesus, so Jesus wants to be wrapped in your humanity! Or, to quote the Apostle Paul: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” That happens when “…your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 1:28; 3:3).

Just as God wrapped Jesus up and gave Him to the world, let Him also wrap you in Christ and present you to the world as an on-going incarnation of His love and compassion! That’s how to make Christmas a 365 day a year experience – 24/7!

Have a blessed Christmas filled with His Presence…