Help Is Coming

Your God is coming. . . . He is coming to save you.

Black smoke billowed from the burning car as April helped the driver to a safe distance. “Help is coming,” she promised as the driver coughed and struggled to breathe. With the car now engulfed in flames, there was nothing to do but keep giving first aid and wait for the first responders to arrive.

In a lull in her conversation with the 911 dispatcher, April repeated her assurance to the driver in distress: “Help is coming.”

Those three simple words, April would later contemplate, can make all the difference in the world. They offer the promise that we are not alone, that our predicament is seen and recognized, and that someone qualified to rescue us has taken notice of our plight and is on the way to do something about it.

The promise of help and rescue has inspired hope through the centuries, but it was never more needed than for the Jewish people over 2,500 years ago. The country had split into two separate kingdoms; one of them was on the verge of being destroyed, and the other didn’t have a much brighter future. Things were looking grim, and God’s prophets, the men and women He spoke through, were foretelling destruction and death.

But help was coming. Speaking on behalf of the Lord, the prophet Isaiah said, “That time of darkness and despair will not go on forever” (Isaiah 9:1). God was promising help in the form of a Messiah who would come on His behalf, saving Israel and the world. A child would be born, a Son given, and the Spirit of the Lord would rest on Him. God Himself would come down to earth and personally do the rescuing.

There was nothing to do but wait and hold on to the promise that the Messiah was coming. Over the next seven hundred years, the people of Israel anticipated His arrival. And then one night in the tiny village specified by the prophet Micah, the child was born. Now God was among humans, putting into motion His plan of hope and salvation.

Help had come.

Rest Assured

Thank You, God, for the hope Jesus’ birth brings. Help us not take for granted the incredible gift we’ve been given.

Rest in Him: Isaiah 9:1-7