Count Down to Christmas - December 1, 2022

It's November and we just turned the air conditioner back on. Welcome to Pennsylvania! Several years back, we had snow on Halloween. Just last Saturday, Scott and I checked and triple-checked the forecast, making plans for some of our rainy day projects. I awakened that morning to sunlight streaming through the windows and birds singing Sunshine on My Shoulders. (We have some very talented birds in our neck of the hoods.) Unpredictable, right? And who likes that? We much prefer things to be structured, planned, normal. 

Lord willing, you will be reading this in December, sitting down with a nice cup of hot cocoa and taking a break from your hall decking; I, however, am just starting to think about Thanksgiving plans, and writing this in anticipation of the holiday season. We expect it, prepare for it, even count on it. But the truth is, calendars can be just as fallible as weather forecasters. Alright, maybe not just as fallible-- Is it my imagination, or have they gotten so much worse? --but let's face it, erasers were invented for a reason. Plans change. 

But there's a plan that hasn't changed, that didn't change. It's a plan that was prophesied in the Garden of Eden:

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.” ~ Genesis 3:15

How long had Adam and Eve lived in the garden before the serpent came looking to get ahold of the glory that belongs to God alone? Weeks? Months? I don't want to be common, but they were created as full-grown adults, naked, and with no television: as of the moment they fell to temptation, they had no children. Get my drift? If that's not enough, how long can you go without one prideful or disobedient act? I think it stands to reason, they hadn't been occupants of Eden too long. But here they were, the first human beings, early in the game, and God gives them-- and all of us, by proxy --a promise: His Seed will bruise (fatally) the head of the serpent's seed. 

Quick story: My mom's family was a tough bunch of characters. The stories they could tell! One moved into an old house in Maryland. His wife was cooking dinner one evening when a snake came slithering out of the fireplace. They were a little unnerved, but my cousin beat it's head in with a shovel. After that, snakes became more of a nuisance than a shock. More than one snake met it's demise under the heel of my cousin's boot. 

Back to our prophecy, though. Do you see that capital S, there. Bible translators use that to show us there is more in this passage than just the simple threat of snake bites and annoyed husbands squashing black racers. There are the words that follow: He will bruise your head; you will bruise His heel. There is a single Man, a Representative for all mankind, a Victor. That Representative is Jesus, who will come as a God-Man, showing us how to walk out the life He will purchase for us with His very blood. Thousands of years after the words were spoken in Eden, Jesus was born. Thousands of years after His birth, life, death, and resurrection, human beings are being reborn by the Holy Spirit. 

So, wear a sweater, make your holiday plans; I hope it all goes as planned. But, only Jesus is The Promise you can count on!