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Scripture for the day: Matthew 1:21-23 And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call his name Immanuel," which is translated, God with us.
Thought for the day: Any number of times in his book, Matthew shows how the words of the prophets were fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, particularly those events surrounding his birth. Now it's easy in our day, with the scientific and so-called rational turn of mind we have to regard such things as coincidence (after all, isn't evolution based to a large degree on coincidence, the odds of a given event happening at a given time or in a given sequence?). However, just a cursory glance at the statistical probability of the Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in a single individual should be enough to at least make one wonder.
In his book, Science Speaks, Peter Stoner applies the modern science of probability to just eight prophecies regarding Christ. He says, “The chance that any man might have ...fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in 10 to the 17th. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000.” (one hundred quadrillion).
Stoner suggests that “if we take 10 to the 17th silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas, they will cover all of the state 2 feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly... Blindfold a man and tell him he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up that one marked silver dollar. What chance would he have of getting the right one?”
Stoner concludes, “Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing those eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man ,... providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.”
As you can see, the odds against these prophecies coming true are astronomical. Now consider the cost to have this Jesus come and dwell amongst us.
It cost Mary and Joseph the comforts of home during a long period of exile in Egypt to protect the little babe.
It cost mothers, in and around Bethlehem, the massacre of their babies by the cruel order of Herod.
It cost the shepherds the complacency of their shepherd’s life, with the call to the manger and to tell the good news.
It cost the wise men a long journey and expensive gifts and changed lives.
It cost the early Apostles and the early church persecution and sometimes death.
It cost missionaries of Christ untold suffering and privation to spread the Good News.
It cost Christian martyrs in all ages their lives for Christ’s sake.
More than all this, it cost God the Father His own Son—He sent Him to the earth to save men.
It cost Jesus a life of sacrifice and service, a death cruel and unmatched in history.
Now consider what that means to you and me as we commemorate the advent of the Christ child. Can we begin to appreciate the value of the Gift of all gifts? Can we even hope to realize what it meant for the Lord God to send his Son, not just to live among us but to die for us? Can we begin then to live our lives in gratitude?
Now go take on your world. - Bill