If the gospel, the message of God’s love for us sinners, has a heart and soul, these verses are it. We like to talk about the gospel as the good news, or as God’s undeserved love. We talk of the gospel when we speak about Christ’s perfect life and his innocent death. But these words, spoken by a pastor some 600 years before the Messiah was born, tell us just what that good news is, just what God’s love means and just what Christ’s life and death did for us. They reveal a plan that was conceived by God’s love in eternity, that was revealed to mankind after they fell into sin, and a plan that was carried out perfectly.

It is God’s perfect plan. And we would expect nothing less from the God who epitomizes the very concept of good. His perfect plan reaches out from the pages of Scripture and captures our hearts so that we are saved. His perfect plan was executed with the perfect timing, when everything was just right and all the pieces of history’s puzzle were in just the right spot. His perfect plan contains for all who believe in it a perfect ending, one that results in perfect happiness and unending peace.

We have begun a new church year. And at the beginning of the church year, our eyes look to Bethlehem to see God’s perfect plan take flesh. But our eyes look beyond the hills of Bethlehem to the vast expanse of the heavens where God’s perfect plan will come to its perfect ending. The LORD Our Righteousness will return.