This week as we get ready for the final Sunday in Advent and to celebrate Jesus’ birth, we are bringing you a moment of… to celebrate the reason for the season. Check back daily for new daily devotions, prayers, and inspiration.

No matter how complicated Christmas holidays get, the Christmas story is simple. It’s about a baby and the love and peace he brings to humankind – the reason for the season.

From the beginning of time, God showed love through creation, promises, faithfulness, and covenants. But there was more in store, and while God’s people didn’t know it, God was weaving together a bigger story. 

For generations, God sustained the lineage of King David, who was declared the Messiah’s ancestor. The writer of Genesis referred to the coming of God’s Son as early as the third chapter of the Bible, and the faithful had been waiting for his birth in Bethlehem.

But while the Old Testament is full of promises of the coming of our Lord, no one knew yet that a baby, born in a stable, would be the ultimate sign of God’s love for all. No one could have known of the truth and peace he would bring – or of how it would get him killed.

And no one could have known how his life on earth with God’s people, and his resurrection to life after death, would provide hope and everlasting salvation to us all.

But God knew, because God knows what we need, so God gave us the most perfect gift at Christmas. A gift of love, hope, and peace for the world.

This was a sign of things to come – the humble, the poor, and the meek would be first in the eyes of God. This is not only the story of God coming to the earth as a vulnerable baby to experience life as a human but, ultimately, the big story of God’s redemption of the world.

Share the peace of Christ.

God the Creator who delights in you,
Jesus the Savior who is born for you,
and the lifegiving Spirit who shines on you,
bless you and keep you in love, hope, and peace.
Amen.