God promised to rescue His people from sin, and he used messy people in Jesus' family line to be faithful to His promise. 

God's kingdom has been divided, and His people were exiled, or sent away from their homes. After many years, God's people were able to return to their homes and were reminded of God's faithfulness from the prophets. 

Once they returned home, there weren't any new prophets and there was no scripture given to God's people. The people were waiting and it seemed like God was silent. For 400 years, no new messages were sent to God's people. That's a really long time, but God hadn't forgotten His promise, and He was still ruling history and preparing the world for the Rescuer. 

When the time was right, God fulfilled his promise of a Savior by sending Jesus to the world. He chose Mary and Joseph to be his parents, both are part of the family line that we have been learning about.

The Rescuer came as a baby, but he fulfilled God's promise through his sinless life, death on the cross, and resurrection from the grave. His birth didn't rescue God's people - his life, death, and resurrection did.

We are all messy people, and we can't save ourselves. We're all in need of a Savior. Before Jesus' birth, the people were waiting for God's promise to come true. We get to live knowing that God's promise is true. However, God's not done yet. The rescue offered to us through Jesus will one day apply to the whole world. Everything broken will be made right again and we will get to live in God's perfect and eternal kingdom.

We can respond to knowing that God has fulfilled His promise of sending a Rescuer by living with hope and learning to trust God's way over our own way. We can learn to let God be king over our lives. 

We are reminded of God's faithfulness with this verse:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23