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The Missing Piece

December 15, 2024

On Friday night, many of us enjoyed the live performances of our students singing and playing for the annual Christmas program. Teachers and students worked hard, and it was a blessing to those who heard it.

Our  theme was “The Fullness of Time” taken from Galatians 4:4-5.

But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Paul is juxtaposing two realities: the reality of our bondage to sin before Christ against the freedom we can have from that bondage since Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection.

Before Christ, things were broken and something was missing.
After Christ, wholeness is an option.

God’s perfect timing – the fullness of time – fulfilled His perfect will.

During Christmas, we often hear, sing, and even use the word “Peace.” The Hebrew word for peace in the Old Testament is “Shalom.”

One of the basic meanings of Shalom is “complete or whole.”

If you have ever worked on a puzzle, you may have experienced that feeling of utter despair and frustration upon reaching the end of the laborious task only to find that the final piece is missing.

Never mind that the other 1,999 pieces are there, in their perfect place and order; that missing piece shatters the psyche and burns in the mind.

Then, after a thorough search, the wayward piece is found!  As it is reverently put into place, it completes the puzzle, making it whole, and bringing relief and rest to the mind and soul.

If it is never found, the puzzle is often abandoned and rejected.  

Jesus is that piece.  

While there are companies who can help you manufacture a replacement for a missing piece, there is no way to replace Jesus.

You can work your whole life long trying to “get it all together,” but without His presence, there will never be completeness or wholeness in your soul.

Only when you accept Him as your Savior, admitting you are a sinner whose sin has separated you from a holy God, and placing your faith in Jesus and His sacrificial death and victorious resurrection as the only possible way of salvation, then you will be saved and able to rest…

In completeness and wholeness with God the Father.

Without Him, you, like so many, will continue to flounder.  Always at war with life; always seeking some new thing or “truth” that you hope will complete the puzzle; only to find that it isn’t the right shape or design.

We were made like a puzzle so that when complete, the picture that is revealed is Jesus Christ.

God’s perfect timing for you to place your faith and trust in His son and allow Him to sit on the throne of your heart is now.  Today.

To be clear, God’s word tells us that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.  

Accepting Christ won’t automatically fix the world around us, but it will give you peace inside, in your soul, that will allow you to know rest even when facing struggles and difficulties.

Unhappy marriage?  
Wayward child?  
Job stress?
Political disappointment?  
Interpersonal conflict?

While unavoidable in this life, resting in Christ allows you to know peace in the midst of it all.  

My prayer is that each of you will know and experience that true and lasting peace this Christmas season.