Day 6

An angel told Joseph, who was engaged to Mary, that “she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

You may not like to hear the doctor say you’re sick, especially when you feel good. The doctor is not being mean when she says you’re sick; she’s helping you to get better. In the same way, the Lord tells us we have a problem and He does so because He loves us and wants us to have a forever love, life, and happiness.

The angel said our problem is our sin. To sin means we don’t listen to God. We sin when we don’t do what God tells us to do. For example, God tells us to pray to Him. If we don’t want to pray or forget to pray, we aren’t obeying God. We also sin when we do things that God tells us not to do. For instance, God tells us to be kind to one another. If we treat others meanly or say unkind things to them, we sin by doing what God forbids.

However, sin is more than failing to do the good God tells us to do or doing the bad He tells us not to do. When we don’t listen to God, we think that what He says is untrue. We think we know better than God. We don’t love God. Sin is part of who we are as people. We’re born in sin. Our minds, hearts, and wills are affected by sin and desire to sin. Like Adam and Eve, our sin separates us from God and He will punish us as a result. Since we can’t do anything to make ourselves better, what hope do we have?

The angel joyfully announces God’s Good News to Joseph to give us hope! The angel tells us that Jesus is God’s promised deliverer who will save us from our sin! How does Jesus do this? The answer relates to another tree the Bible tells us about. Peter, one of Jesus’ friends and followers, says…

Peter tells us Jesus would save people from sin by dying on a cross made from a tree. Peter also says that Jesus committed no sin. He has never done, said, or thought anything wrong. He has always done what is right. Since Jesus is without sin, He is righteous. Since people are sinners, we are unrighteous. Our sin creates two problems for us. Our sin creates a punishment we cannot pay and an unrighteousness we cannot change. How can we exchange our punishment for forgiveness and our unrighteousness for righteousness?

Many people exchange gifts at Christmas. To exchange means that we give one thing and receive something else in return. Emma gives her friend Lily a gift and Lily gives Emma a gift in return. The friends exchange gifts. Imagine that when Lily opens Emma’s gift, she finds a brand new, fluffy, and bright-white robe. Pretty nice! Emma then opens Lily’s gift to find a raggy, dirty, greasy, and stained shirt. Not cool! Emma would surprise us if she wore Lily’s dirty shirt.

Emma and Lily’s exchange is a picture of the shocking exchange that takes place at Jesus’ cross. The dirty shirt is a picture of our sin and unrighteousness. The perfectly clean robe is a picture of Jesus’ righteousness. On the cross, Jesus wears our unrighteousness and puts His robe of righteousness on us. Jesus takes our sin on Himself and pays our punishment through His death on the cross so that His Father will forgive us. Jesus takes His robe of righteousness and covers us with it so that God doesn’t see our unrighteousness but He sees us only in Jesus’ perfect righteousness. The Bible says that…