Birth Announcements

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

Luke 2:10-12

When Christ was born, no birth announcements were issued. So how were people to know that the Savior had arrived? Many things were different when He was born – angels were singing, a bright star was leading the way for the wise men – but the Lord did not leave it at that. He made it very clear that the Savior had come. Not just a Baby, but the Savior of the world.

He announced it to shepherds in the field, and He gave very clear instructions on how to find Him. He announced the birth, and then told them what to do to find Him.

It is no different today. The Lord has given us the Good News that Christ is born, that He is our Salvation, that He has come to save the world.

We have a birth announcement, so to speak, in the Bible. The Lord has told us time and again through His Word that Jesus Christ is the Savior, and that only He can be the propitiation for sin for all who believe in Him. There were more than 300 prophecies written before the birth of Christ, promising His arrival, so that people would watch for Him and know Him when He arrived. The Lord told us through the prophets that the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14); be the son of God (Psalm 2:7); and would be a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 22:18) and of the house of David (Jeremiah 23:5), to name only a few of the prophecies fulfilled by Jesus. 

The wise men knew to look for Him, and the Israelites had been waiting for His arrival. And after his death and resurrection, people everywhere were talking, and the books of the New Testament confirm His many actions before His death and after His resurrection.

Romans 3:23-25a tells us: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness.”

Today is the day of Salvation. May we each ensure that we’ve received and accepted the birth announcement of Christ and that we are willing to spread the Word to a lost and dying world that is searching for a Savior. And, as the wise men did, may we bring a gift to Jesus: the gift of belief and trust in Him. It will change our lives forever.

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“Oh! what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels.” (Charles Spurgeon)