“Fix it, daddy.” What father hasn’t heard those words? Dads love to fix things for their kids. We fix their toys, their swing sets, their scraped knees…we fix it all. Or at least try to. What we cannot fix is their broken hearts.
But there’s One Father who can.
It started back as long ago as time itself. Through one man’s sin, our perfect planet was broken. And it seemed unfixable. Wars, pestilence, disease, cruelty, even the very weather turning against us…the price tag for mankind’s abandonment of God was sickeningly high. As the carol says, “long lay the world, in sin and error pining…”
Till He appeared. And everything changed.
The ebb and flow of the times into which Jesus was born weren’t so different than ours. It’s true, today the clothes are different, the languages, the customs. But then, as now, the fortress of sin—brought here by the enemy, and with man’s full cooperation—seemed impregnable. Until the night a tiny Child came. A baby, born in a rented stable to a teenage virgin…it was He who held the key to sin’s destruction.
The world didn’t know it at the time. But the enemy did. Through his influence on the mind of a mad king, Satan tried to destroy the seed of God. The decree went forth: “kill every male Jewish child two years of age and under.” Satan was taking no chances; kill them all, he reasoned, and he was bound to get the One. The cries of Rachael, the wailing of all Israel’s destitute mothers, rose high.
And those cries of justice and recompense still rise. The spirit of murder stalks the land today, in the form of senseless gang shootings, of hopeless domestic violence, of bloody abortion clinics. Satan still wishes to kill all life.
Because he is death itself. The Word says he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
But the scripture is also clear: Jesus Christ took back the keys to death, hell and the grave. The Son of God, through His life and through His sacrifice, has destroyed the power of death over anyone who’ll place their trust in Him.
The power of that story still amazes us. It happened this way.
The Savior’s arriving was foretold thousands of years before He showed up that night in the manger. The long-expected suffering, yet conquering, Messiah had come at last. His very life, the entire thirty-three years of His earthly existence, showcased the fulfillment of over two hundred prophecies given over thousands of years. Jesus Christ’s coming to earth wasn’t happenstance; it was a promise kept. The promise stated in God’s own Word: “Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Jesus took the punishment for our sin. The stripes laid on his naked back by the Roman flagram, the “cat-o-nine-tails” purchased our healing. As a ransom for many, and with His blood, Jesus freely gave us His life. His salvation. And everything that word entails, including healing, protection, preservation, wholeness, and deliverance. You see, in Christ there’s nothing missing. Nothing broken. Restored fellowship between God and man. Zoe life. The immortal life of God Himself, living inside anyone, man, woman, boy, or girl who’ll accept Him.
“Fix it, daddy,” we cry. And He does. Every time. All we have to do is believe it, receive it, and trust Him. Truly, “God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of His heaven.”
But there’s one promise left. The promise of His return. Two millennia ago, when Jesus left the earth, His mission accomplished, He assured those listening that, in the fullness of time, He’d return, and take us all home with Him. He will. And while we’re away, for seven years enjoying fellowship unimagined, Satan will be granted his fondest wish: that of ruling the world. Ruling with pain. With darkness. With madness.
But his rule won’t last. At the end of those seven years, Jesus Christ, now the conquering Warrior-King, will come back—with us!—to engage in final mortal combat with that enemy of everything true and good. And the Word makes it clear: Jesus Christ will win that war.
This Christmas season, to those with eyes to see and ears to hear, His coming seems more near at hand than ever. As Mary felt the birth pangs increase in intensity until Jesus was born, so it is as we look around us. We feel the same pangs. The sense that things simply can’t continue as they have. The knowledge that we’re coming to the end of all things. As with the apostle Paul, we sense the pain of creation itself as it groans, awaiting the rebirth of the world. “Fix it daddy,” we cry.
And it won’t be long now. The daily newscasts tell us what was already prophesied in the Bible thousands of years ago. His coming truly is at hand.
The old carol proclaims, “Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” That’s our prayer for you. That this Christmas, if you don’t know Him, to come to know Him. To come home.
Because the gifts we give, the beautiful things we experience this special time of year, the lights and the trees and the garland, are only shadows of what He wants you to have. This year, if you haven’t done it, give your heart to Jesus. The Christmas gifts you and your Heavenly Father exchange—His life for yours—will never fade or grow dim.
And the childlike wonder in your eyes will reflect the very life of God.