The SMI team is taking a few days off to spend time with family and friends. We'll be back with our end-of-month strategy updates next week.
As Christmas approaches, we encourage you to reflect on the ancient promise from the Book of Isaiah, written 700 years before "the fullness of time" finally arrived and "God sent forth his Son, born of woman" (Galatians 4:4 ESV).
Isaiah prophesied:
....[A] child shall be born to a virgin! And she shall call him Immanuel (meaning, “God is with us”)….
In God's eyes he was like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. But in our eyes there was no attractiveness at all, nothing to make us want him. We despised him and rejected him — a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we didn't care.
Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed — and we were healed!
We — every one of us — have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God's paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us! He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he never said a word…. From prison and trial they led him away to his death.
But who among the people of that day realized it was their sins that he was dying for — that he was suffering their punishment? He was buried like a criminal, but in a rich man's grave; but he had done no wrong and had never spoken an evil word….
Because of what he has experienced, my righteous Servant shall make many to be counted righteous before God, for he shall bear all their sins. (Isaiah 7:14, 53:2-11 TLB)
'The image of the invisible God'
The "righteous Servant" of Isaiah's prophecy is, of course, Jesus Christ, the King of kings!
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:15-20 ESV)
Best wishes to you and yours for a joyous and Christ-centered Christmas celebration!
