Four Weeks of Wonder: Week Three
He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.
1 Corinthians 15:4 NLT
In the spirit of Christmas, 20 The Countdown Magazine has themed the month of December a month of “wonder.” Our team has created a devotional each week of the month in which we will study a short passage of Scripture and uncover the wonder of God to honor the upcoming celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ!
The birth and death of Jesus are undeniably two incredibly powerful moments in history. After all, he changed B.C. into A.D. and split history with his own life, so our question today is: what separates Jesus from everyone else and what about his resurrection captured the eyes of history?
If you look back at the Old Testament, and if you know anything about the world that Jesus was born into, you’ll know that our God was not the only deity that people were following. There are so many examples in both the Old Testament and the New Testament where other cultures worshipped differently, or even God’s people chose to worship something other than God in a moment of weakness.
The book of Isaiah offers us a lot of insight to the prophecy of the Messiah, the One who would come to save us all. In Chapter 53, the prophet depicts “a man of sorrows” who encountered a difficult life for our sake.
“But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we
could be healed…”
“But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him
grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.”
“I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for the rebels.”
Isaiah 53: 5, 10, 12
When Jesus began his ministry, Jesus was clear about his intentions from the beginning, saying phrases like “I have not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose” (Matthew 5:17); He explains the coming sacrifice: “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24); and he predicted his death, saying “I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for me, but you can’t come where I am going” (John 13:33).
So what makes Jesus different from any other deity at the time, or even today? Jesus came and fulfilled over 300 prophecies with his life on earth. He accomplished exactly what he predicted, and the predictions of prophets hundreds of years earlier. If the miracles he performed and the lessons he taught through parables weren’t convincing enough to his followers, there was one thing that Jesus did that had not ever happened in the history of time, nor has it happened since: Jesus was resurrected.
“Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to
the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from
the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter… She said, ‘They have
taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb, and we don’t know where
they have put him!'”
“That Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked
doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders.
Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! ‘Peace
be with you,’ he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds
in his hands and his side.”
John 20:1-2, 19-20
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a miracle that we might never understand until we get to heaven, but on this side of heaven, we can believe that a man who was destined to save the lost came, taught and healed, predicted his death, and died a martyr’s death to save the souls of everyone who would come to know him. He forever tore the veil between God and his creation so that we might spend eternity with him.
The birth of Jesus should be celebrated with this important reminder in the back of our minds. We should always remember the significance of Jesus arriving as a baby, growing as a human (like us!), and becoming a living sacrifice that would change our lives forever. It truly was a holy night.
Every week in the month of December, we’ll explore another aspect of “Wonder” through Scripture! Sign up for our e-newsletter to get all the news and this devotional delivered right to your inbox.
