Hello blogland, it’s been a while.
It’s been a busy and tiring year, but for now, I thought I’d pull myself out of the cave and engage in my usual advent blogging.
I really do like Christmas that much.
For this first week of December, I’ve decided to explore a theme: ‘Pieces of the ‘Puzzle’. The Christmas puzzle, that is.
And much like those advent calendars with puzzle pieces (which I see people getting overly excited about on socials), day by day I’m going to add puzzle pieces to the hints of Christmas found in the Old Testament, prior to Jesus’ birth.
So here we go.
Puzzle Piece 1: Christmas Eve
And no, I don’t mean the 24th. I mean Eve in Genesis.
Here’s what is written all the way back at the start of The Bible:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
This is God talking to Satan after Satan has successfully tempted Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A clear message is spelt out here: there will be an ongoing battle between Satan and Eve, representative of womankind. The offspring of both Satan and Eve will always be at war.
Ultimately however, there will be a male offspring from Eve who will destroy Satan:
…he will crush your head…
This verse appears to be referring to a certain individual. And the word ‘crush’ implies a definitive strike.
This is why many people believe that even all the way back in Genesis, there is a hint that one will come, born of a woman, who will destroy evil.
However, there is nothing to suggest that this offspring would come straight away, but rather, that he would come according to a divinely determined timeframe:
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.
There was a set time. The Jews were waiting and waiting for one to be born of a woman. They didn’t know when, but they believed a human rescuer was coming.
And it makes perfect sense that the one who is to perform this rescue, must be brought into the world in the same way as all other humanity. He must be like (but not the same) as all the other offspring.
As it says in the New Testament book of Hebrews:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.
So there you have it, the stage is set, even right back in Genesis for the arrival of a very special baby boy who will be a rescuer. That’s about all they knew back then, but it’s just the first piece of the puzzle and a very important one.
I know some people think that Christianity is far-fetched and ludicrous, but I see a rather different side to it. I see a God who has a promise and a plan and gives us puzzle pieces or clues, all along the way as he fulfils his word.
I’ll share another one with you tomorrow.
Yours blogging again,
Alison
