Miraculous Gift

The Miraculous Gift

“All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel! Which means, ‘God is with us.’” (Isaiah 7:14 NLT)

To all mothers near and far: Do you remember the day your doctor confirmed your pregnancy? Do you remember the long wait as the new life grew within you? Do you remember as the day drew near how the expectation grew?

   As a father, I remember all too well the events, the nervousness, the fear of that fateful night. My wife did not have the usual cramps that signaled oncoming labor. She complained of a back-ache and pain, but didn’t seem able to gauge the contractions. I became anxious and decided it was time to head for the hospital. I drove like a crazy man down Natural Bridge Boulevard in a steady rain. I dodged in and out of traffic as my wife sat moaning beside me. I raced into the emergency entrance of the Normandy Osteopathic Hospital as attendants came out with a wheelchair. Before I could even sign the admittance papers, I heard a shrill cry from the adjoining ER room. Wow! A five pound, four ounce baby girl was born. Our Christmas baby was born six weeks prematurely. My first reaction was a huge sigh and the words, “It’s a miracle baby!”

   I wonder what the first words were that Joseph and Mary uttered when their baby boy was born. Did they consider Jesus to be a “miracle baby?” After an arduous four day eighty mile journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Mary would be close to exhaustion. It’s a miracle that Mary did not have her baby on a cart along the road just as I almost had our baby in the car traveling to the hospital. But God overshadowed them and saw to it that all prophecies surrounding the Messiah’s birth were fulfilled. (See Gen. 49:10; Isa. 7:14; 9:6; Micah 5:2; Jer. 23:5)

   The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ was a Miraculous Gift brought about by the supernatural power of God.

Prayer: Dear Lord, we thank you this Christmas for your Miraculous Gift of salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of the lord Jesus Christ.