One of my fantasies while growing up on the farm was to have a pony. This would make a perfect Christmas gift and would further my ambition to become a cowboy like some of my childhood movie heroes. The pony I wanted was advertised in a mail-order catalog and would be shipped to my house for only $599.00. Looking back on this, I now realize $599.00 was a small fortune to my parents, who were living paycheck to paycheck. My pleading for the slightest hint of a promise was dismissed with “Sorry, son, we can’t afford that.”

As I grew up and became wiser, I came to understand why my parents denied my request.

When our children were young, they would ask Cecelia or me to “promise” to do something or get something for them. We would say, “We will think about that, but can’t promise we will do it.”

Sometimes our concern about the request was what such a promise would cost us. Another factor in our unwillingness to make a quick promise to their request was that life circumstances might make granting their wish impossible. We realized we were not God and not in control of what might happen to nullify the promise. Therefore,  one of our rules was to be very careful about making promises we may not be able to keep.

God, on the other hand, is inclined to make promises to His children. The Bible is full of promises to those of us who have come into God’s family by putting our trust in Jesus. His greatest promise is the Christmas Promise!

The Christmas Promise is the most important, far-reaching, fantastic, and inclusive promise ever made in human history. It is the promise related to Christmas, the holy day we Christians celebrate this time of year. I will attempt to guide our venture into this amazing promise by looking at four questions:

1. What is the Promise?
2. When was the Promise made?
3. Who is the Promise-Maker?
4. Has the Promise been kept?

Christmas is only three weeks away, but advertisers have been pushing their goods for weeks. Christmas is the most lucrative and sales-focused time of the year. During all the frenzy and fuss that surrounds the Christmas season,  it is easy to miss its essential message, a message that grew out of a promise.

The reason this promise is the most important, far-reaching, fantastic, and most inclusive promise in human history is because of what it offers to me, you, and the entire human race. Let me explain by answering the first couple of questions in this blog and the last two next week.

What is the Christmas Promise?

After God created the heavens and earth and prepared the beautiful Garden of Eden, He created Adam and Eve to rule over His creation and have communion with Him. Tragically, the man and woman disobeyed God and broke the fellowship with their Creator. According to Paul’s writings in  Romans 5:12-14, Adam is the progenitor of the human race, and by his sin, all human beings inherit Adam’s sinful nature. The  Garden of Eden was a perfect environment where Adam and Eve could live in fellowship with God. Their decision to listen to Satan’s lie changed everything for them and us. We are born sinners who, if left to our own devices, will self-destruct.

What then is the promise that points us to the true meaning of Christmas? It is the promise that God would provide the answer for our broken relationship with Him. He would bring about a way to forgive our sins and give us the eternal life that Adam and Eve forfeited in the Garden.

Think about God’s promise in light of these scriptures.

“For by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to many.” Romans 5:15

“For God loved the world so much that He gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16  (My translation).

When was the promise made?

The promise to offer salvation began in the place where the first sin was committed, the Garden of Eden. God made a promise to Eve and the devil in Genesis 3:14-16.

In verse 15, God speaks of a Person (Jesus) as the fulfillment of the promise to defeat the Evil One, ” He shall bruise you (the evil one) on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”  This is the beginning of the promise to restore mankind to a right relationship with God.

We see God’s developing plan throughout the Old Testament, calling  Abram (Genesis 12) to become the father of the nation through which the Messiah comes. In the 8th century B.C., the prophet Isaiah gave explicit details concerning the savior God had promised.” For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us: And the government will rest on his shoulders: And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6.

The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah provides graphic details of the suffering the Messiah would endure for our sin.“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by  His scourging we are healed.”  Isaiah 53:5.

The promise God made in the Garden was that, while sin would have serious consequences, He would ultimately restore the Garden for mankind and provide the solution for the broken fellowship sin had caused.