The Good News That Still Awaits

The shepherds “returned.” After all they had seen and heard, they returned—to shepherding? If these were indeed the shepherds who nurtured the sacrificial lambs for the Temple, did they consider that one day their jobs would be obsolete?

The good news was announced to the excitement of many, but the experience of its fullness still lay in the future. The patience of Israel for its Messiah was answered, but more patience would be needed. The Savior would grow like an ordinary human in the process of time. He would experience time like the rest of us, hour by hour and day by day.

It would be thirty years before Jesus would even begin His public ministry of preaching and healing. We know very little about anything that happened in Jesus’s life during those thirty years, but to all appearances, nothing had changed in Israel’s circumstances.

We are still waiting with patience. The good news that was preached has gone out into all the earth since the days of Jesus, and it seems in many ways that the world remains the same. There are still wars, there is still poverty and injustice, and the world by and large seems as immoral, idolatrous, and divided as ever. Where is this good news of peace that was promised? Even Peter in his day warned against scoffing about the “delay” in the Lord’s return (2 Peter 3:3).

Christmas is a time for us to reflect on Jesus’s arrival, but it is also a time for us to look forward with patience and anticipation for His return. The total reign of Christ with His saints in a new heavens and new earth is reserved for a future age beyond His return. For now, we must be like the shepherds and fulfill the work of our callings, waiting with patience in each generation, and remaining obedient and hopeful in exile with a peace that knowing Jesus gives that is not of or from the circumstances of this world.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, as I reflect on and celebrate your arrival into the world thousands of years ago, turn my heart toward longing for Your return. Help me to seek the welfare of the city where I am called and fulfill the work which You have called me to do, teach me to be obedient in patience, knowing that my true citizenship is not of this earthly city, but the eternal city that is from heaven.

May I neither grow weary in doing good nor grow too comfortable or at home here and forget that I am but a pilgrim in exile, waiting for Your glorious return when I will reign with You in the perfect future that You have promised and alone accomplish.

Amen.