The Bible portrays two contrasting pictures. The first one is of God, the self-existent, self-sufficient, sovereign Creator who is completely faithful. Just this morning I read in Joshua 23:14-15 about when Joshua was giving his final good-byes to the people of Israel and he reminded them that "none of the good promises the Lord your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed." God was (and is) absolutely faithful. Dozens of other references throughout Scripture highlight that same perfect faithfulness of God, a few being 2 Samuel 22:26; Psalm 36:5; Psalm 57:10; Psalm 117:2; Lamentations 3:23; and 1 Thessalonians 5:24.
The second picture the Bible portrays is that of man, selfish, sinful and utterly faithless. On our own, we can do nothing good. (Romans 3:10-18) From the beginning, while God is the faithful, man is the faithless. From Adam and Eve's betrayal (Genesis 3:1-19) to Cain and the murder of Abel (Genesis 4:1-16) and then to the flood, where men were so corrupt, God wiped out all but a small remnant, (Genesis 7:1-24) man has stood out with their weakness. Then there were the Israelites. Oy vey! Over and over and over again, they displayed their lack of faith and disobedience to God's commands. (Judges 2:11-13) But it gets worse, because as people are quick to say, "We today are just like the Israelites." Perhaps we may not have sinned in the exact same way that they did, but the point is that we do sin, and we disobey God too. Throughout all of time, since man was created, we have been faithless, while before the world began, God has stood faithful.
This is the Great Contrast portrayed in Scripture. While it is true that those who chose to obey the Lord's commands were blessed by the faithful God, even they messed up, because no human being is completely faithful.
But Christmas is when we celebrate the Great Bridge, the bridge between faithful God and faithless men, when God incarnate, Jesus Christ, came to this earth to offer up His life as a ransom for many. He, God, yet man, was the only completely faithful man. He bridged the gap between God and man and made it possible for us to approach God and interceded for us before the throne of God.
So this Christmas, let's celebrate the faithfulness of God, humbly recognize and repent of our sin and rejoice in the beautiful hope of the Incarnation!