A Sweetheart Deal: God's incredible offer in his unspeakable gift. Dr. Ernan Norman

      Celebrate the joys of Christmas

      I believe it is safe to say, that the Christmas season, like no other, is celebrated with a great sense of joy. For the majority of people (whether they be secular or spiritual), the Christmas season is unarguably the most wonderful time of the year. So, from the humble dwellings of the poor, to the more opulent homes of the rich, one can hear and see the sounds and the sights that express the joys that Christmas brings. Just about everywhere, and in a thousand forms, the celebratory spirit of Christmas beckons us. In places of entertainment, in shopping malls, and in places of worship, the joyful strains of Christmas music can be heard.

      The many joys of Christmas that we share, are rooted, and were actually birthed out of the first Christmas message proclaimed by the angel: “behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord,” Luke 2:10, 11. That is why we sing the good ole Christmas carols this time of year. The message of these carols are about one thing: God’s sweetheart deal in the indescribable gift of His only begotten Son; and that is the message I endeavor to convey in this book.

      This book, was not written in an attempt to throw cold water on the warmth and joys of the Christmas season; on the contrary, it was written in the hope that all who read it, will find in its pages the “good tidings of great joy,” as announced by the angel. That is why I gave the title: A Sweetheart Deal: God’s Incredible offer in His Unspeakable Gift. That gift is the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. As God’s gift to us He came embodied in human flesh, born in a manger, and wrapped in swaddling bans.

      From an outward appearance, there was nothing ostentatious in His coming as a babe in a manger. Isaiah states that He came “as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we should see him, there is no [outward] beauty that we should desire Him,” Isaiah 53:2. His attractions were and are inward; His beauty was and is in His character, which is to be discerned through spiritual eyes.

      Outwardly, Jesus laid aside His divine glory, His majestic splendor, and came to us in the humble gab of humanity. Jesus Himself said, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation [outward show] … for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you,” Luke 17:20, 21. The Jews of Christ day was expecting a Messiah decked in stars and stripes, one who would exude military force and political prowess, overthrow the Roman yoke, and establish with unmistakable splendor the earthly throne of David. When Jesus came as He did, a humble Galilean, who looked, and walked, and talked, in terms like the people of that day, the words of Isaiah was fulfilled: that the Jews “hid as it were [their] faces from him; he was despised, and [they] esteemed him not,” Isaiah 53:3. John nevertheless testified that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth,” John 1:14.

      Among the relative few who accepted and followed the humble Galilean, John’s testimony is that “we beheld his glory.” John’s reference to His glory is no doubt inclusive of those rear moments and “experiences such as the Transfiguration, when divinity momentarily flashed through humanity. Peter similarly speaks of being an ‘eyewitness’ to the ‘majesty’ and ‘excellent glory’ of Christ at the Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16-18) … this divine ‘glory’ rested upon a historical person, Jesus of Nazareth.” What John is also referring to when he said “we beheld his glory,” is no doubt “the perfection of character exemplified by the Saviour.”1

      John said He was full of grace and truth. John is speaking here of faithfulness, trustworthiness, mercy, and truth. “These words appear together in the [Old Testament] in a clearly Messianic setting, in Ps. 85:10, 11.”2 We also find echoes of this in Exodus 34, when Moses asked God to show him His glory: “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation,” vs. 7, 8. “It was precisely these attributes of God that Christ came particularly to reveal. While on earth He was ‘full’ of them, and could thus give a full and complete revelation of the Father.”3

      Yes, Christ is God’s most beautiful, most indescribable gift to all who will receive Him. Those who truly desire to know Him will along with Isaiah “see the king in his beauty,” and will proclaim like Philip, to their friends and relatives, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” and all, together with Peter, will “rejoice with joy unspeakable