Thursday, December 20, 2018
Luke 2:31 “. . .Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples. . .”
A FATHER’S PREPARATIONS
Preparing for the arrival of a baby includes a certain amount of guesswork, especially for first-time parents. When the child is finally born, one usually finds that some of the things bought in preparation were not needed, and that money should have been spent on something essential that had been overlooked. As parents have more children, they learn to adjust their preparations. But for all of the unknowns, there one thing of which all parents are certain; they are going to love that child no matter what.
God the Father prepared for the arrival of His Son infinitely more thoroughly than any earthly parent. From our perspective in time, we consider the four thousand or so years of preparation that we can read and learn about in the Old Testament. But it was even more than that. God had prepared for this from eternity. When God did bring forth people on this earth, He used history to show His preparations before the face of all people. Great signs and wonders, miraculous births like Isaac, resurrections from the dead like the widow of Zarephath’s son, the choosing of the Israelites to be His people, the rise and fall of great gentile nations, and sending prophets to preach repentance to sinners -- to turn them to Himself -- all these things and more God did to prepare people for His Son and their salvation.
Why did God have to do all of this? Not because He needed to be prepared, but we needed to be prepared. One thing was tragically certain: all people would hate God’s Son according to their sinful nature. Our sinful nature, which doesn’t believe we need any help from God, does not see a precious baby in Jesus, but it sees Jesus and the Father as busybodies and tattletales trying to fix something that isn’t broken.
Advent is a time to be reminded of our daily need to repent and offer up our broken spirits to the Lord who has prepared our salvation. In this God continues to prepare us to meet His Son at His second coming -- certain that as we love him now, we will love Him perfectly in life everlasting.
