Day 12: The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6

While I was pregnant with my first born, I fully expected the baby to emerge with red hair like my husband’s.  After my son was born, I was surprised to see he had dark hair and that his complexion was like mine.  During my second pregnancy, we knew we were having a little girl, and I expected her to favor her older brother.  Again, I was surprised when my beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter was placed in my arms.  Although my predictions were wrong, my beautiful babies far exceeded any expectations I had!

Unlike my own flawed track record, Isaiah was 100% accurate in his prophecies relating to the Messiah as recorded in the Bible.  Some of these prophecies included details like “Behold, a virgin shall conceive” and he would be “heir to King David’s throne.”  Isaiah’s prophecies were astonishingly accurate considering that they were written seven hundred years prior to the birth of Jesus!  In Isaiah 9:6, he also expounded on the nature of the baby by proclaiming attributes or titles that the future Messiah would possess, including that he would be “Wonderful”.  Wonderful, in Hebrew, is “pele”, defined as wonder, marvel, extraordinary, or hard to understand.  Jesus’ birth was amazing, not only because of all the prophecies it fulfilled, but also for what it signified.  And Advent is a time for us to embrace this knowledge.  In The Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp says, “The message of Christmas is that this world’s a mess and we can never save ourselves from ourselves and we need a Messiah.”  Over two thousand years later, our need for that precious baby, whose birth fulfilled all of Isaiah’s Messianic prophecies, still holds true.  And I believe, if Isaiah could have seen the results of Jesus’ life, He would have declared this “the most wonderful time of the year!”