The Cast of Christmas — The Prophets

Most of life is preparation and waiting, with only a small fraction spent in the doing — and that, this message argues, is exactly the pattern of Christmas. Opening a series on the cast of Christmas, it begins with the prophets, the figures who readied people for the Messiah. The point is traced from the first announcement of the gospel in Genesis 3:15 through Micah's prophecy seven hundred years before Bethlehem, showing the entire Old Testament as preparation for a rescue. Sin is named honestly — missing the mark, separation, the wages of death. Biblical preparation, drawn from John the Baptist in Matthew 3 , begins not with hustle but with repentance — not merely feeling sorry but changing direction — so that the season produces fruit and Christmas is experienced as the rescue mission it was.