Thousands of years ago, the Creator of the universe — and everything in it — made a promise to His people. It was a promise of faithfulness. It was the promise of life from the grip of death.

But we — the pinnacle of God’s creation — were convinced we didn’t need our Creator and questioned, just like the powerful Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice?” In the face of a life-giving Creator, we ran in our rebellion straight toward the grave of sin, following our own desires, making ourselves out to be higher than the One who made us and made all.

And still, God, our Creator and Father, remained faithful to his people. He made a promise and God is a God who keeps His word.

Throughout the course of history, we have fumbled about looking for the Savior, the answer to all our problems. At just the right time, however, God set into motion a plan laid out before there was time.

You see, everything needed to be just so. There was no too early or too late. The answer to our problem wouldn’t lie with an emperor or a politician or with any created thing or being. The answer to the problem of our sin would come from God, as He assumed the form of a baby. Fully God. Fully man. In the flesh. The Incarnation.

A recent song called “Come Behold The Wondrous Mystery," written by Matt Boswell, Michael Bleeker, and Matt Papa in 2013, takes us on the journey through this good news — the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the God-man. The answer to our ultimate problem. 

In verse one of the modern-day hymn, we examine this incarnation – God putting on flesh, leaving the chorus of heavenly beings singing His praises to enter a stable where the stink of farm animals filled the newborn's nostrils. Leaving the throne of eternal heaven to enter a specific time in human history to be born of a woman and placed in a feeding trough. What a wondrous mystery!

In the second verse, the lyrics ramp up, focusing on the perfect life of Jesus, this God-man who never committed a trace of sin. Spotless. He was like us yet perfect, like we could never be. The true and better Adam, Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s law and all of God’s plan to save us. How can it be? What a wondrous mystery!

In verse three, we step into the darkest moment of all of history. The reality of sin as our problem, the cause and root of all society’s ills, the thing that broke nature, the answer to our ever-present “WHY?” The justice for  sin is put on Jesus on a Roman cross. In our place. Hanging with common criminals, but bringing to fruition the Father’s promised plan. It’s hard to fathom the grace of this action. What a wondrous mystery!

But, this isn’t the end, friends. In verse four, we see the biggest comeback in the history of comebacks. We see the ultimate villain — Satan, sin, and death — defeated by the God of life. No grave can restrain. No power of hell can separate. What a picture of what is to come for us! What a foretaste of deliverance! How unwavering our hope! Christ in power resurrected, as we will be when He comes. What a wondrous mystery!

Jesus Christ initiated and set into motion the coming of the Kingdom of God. It’s not always easy for us to understand and it can truly seem mysterious. But, this mystery kept secret for long ages – as Paul writes in Colossians – has now been revealed in God’s wonderful mystery, Jesus Christ.

His promise has been kept. Our hope is secure. Our Creator has come for us. The problem has a solution. What a wondrous mystery! Come. Look. See. BEHOLD!