Behind Day 7 of my Advent Calendar is:
AN OPEN SECRET
Nobody should imagine that I consider myself even remotely similar to God. But I do sometimes wonder if I share, just a a tiny bit in one minuscule aspect of his character. Let me explain.
Long ago, when we were first married, my wife and I lived in Bristol. In those days Kaye was working as a teacher and so it eventually came to pass that I had a week off during term time leaving me, therefore, home alone. Being the deeply romantic individual that I am (stop sniggering at the back!), I thought I’d try and do something to surprise her and so, on the Wednesday of my week’s holiday, I decided to see if I could book tickets for us to go and see ‘Les Miserables’ in London the following Saturday night.
So I bought a newspaper – no internet back then – and found in the London Theatre Guide the phone number for the theatre where the show was being performed. I made the call and amazingly, despite it being the most popular show in the West End, and my asking for the most popular performance of the week, I managed to get tickets – for, if memory serves me right, the unbelievably cheap price of just £5.50 each! (Don’t worry, I may have treated her to an ice cream in the interval as well !)
Anyway, my plan was that I’d keep it a secret from Kaye, telling her only that we were going to some mystery location that upcoming Saturday. Well I couldn’t do it! Within minutes of her returning home, I was dropping hints of what we would be doing and, so excited was I that, by the time we went to bed that night, I’d completely spilled the beans.
And in some ways I think God is the same. For having planned his great salvation, he too was unable to keep it a secret. Indeed, just moments after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and thousands of years before Jesus was actually born, God promised that somebody would one day come, one who would be ‘the offspring of a woman’ and would ‘crush the head’ of Satan even as he himself had his heel bruised. [Genesis 3:15]
And that is exactly what subsequently happened. In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, one who was indeed ‘born of woman’ [Galatians 4:4]
Throughout the Old Testament. Like me with my ‘secret surprise’, God keeps spilling the beans about the saviour who would one day come. He speaks of how he’d be a descendent of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a member of the tribe of Judah and an heir to the throne of David. Then, still hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth he tells us, in the book of Micah, that the child would be born in Bethlehem [Micah 5:2] and, in the book of Isaiah, that he would be born of a virgin. [Isaiah 7:14]
These predictions, made hundreds of years before Jesus’s birth, were fulfilled. Each and every promise that God made was eventually kept. Which shouldn’t come as any surprise – because God can’t help but always keep his promises.
And not only did he keep the promises he made relating to Jesus’ birth, he also kept the promises he made relating to Jesus’ death – amongst many others, that he would suffer and die for the sake of others [Isaiah 53:4-5], that he would be buried in a rich man’s tomb [Isaiah 53:9] and that he would subsequently be raised from the dead [Psalm 16:10].
And so it is little wonder that the apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth said:
‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ [1 Corinthians 15:3-4]
But God’s promises don’t end there. He has made many more – and he will keep the promises that he has made concerning the future as surely as he has kept the promises related to things already past. And these include promises that assure us that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved [Romans 10:13] and that a day is coming when all our tears will be washed away and death will be no more. [Revelation 21:4]
Like my surprise trip to London, this is another ‘secret’ that I am just too excited about to keep myself – and that’s why I’m spilling the beans here!
Take my word for it – these are promises worth believing.
So what song should I choose to close with? Well the one I’ve opted for is not a Christmas song, but it is a cracker, so it will just have to do. And in a funny kind of a way it’s sort of appropriate too since it concerns somebody who is unable to keep quiet about the love they have for another. The only thing is that God doesn’t ask you to promise not tell others of his love for you – rather he asks that you spread the ‘secret’ of his love… to the very ends of the earth.
I told you he can’t keep a secret!
*****
Over then to The Beatles, singing here ‘Do you want to know a secret’.
Previously from ‘A Christmas Countdown’:
To read A ‘Christmas Countdown – Day 6’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 5’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 4’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 3’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 2’, click here
To read ‘A Christmas Countdown – Day 1’, click here
Related posts:
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘Looking back to move confidently forward’, click here
To read ‘Faith and Doubt’, click here
Some musings 