When we say the word "Christmas" we have the picture in our mind of a young woman holding a baby. But that child, drawn by artists on cards and calendars, is very special and totally different from all other children.

The prophet Isaiah, moved by the Spirit of God, foretells the birth of a child:

Just think, the prophet is proclaiming something inconceivable: one day, a new-born babe, who is none other than God Himself, will join the ranks of humankind.

Not every new-born can make a claim to divinity. In truth, only one child will have the right to claim that he is the one, the child who is God, about whom Isaiah spoke.

The New Testament clearly affirms that Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ and born in Bethlehem, is the One about Whom Isaiah prophesies.

But how can we be sure that the baby Jesus is that unique one out of all the millions of others?

To do this we need to turn to various prophecies of the Old Testament which talk about the birth of the Christ child. If we see that they are all fulfilled in the one child, then it follows that he is God, who has come in the flesh.

But what is prophecy? And what does its fulfillment tell us?

Allow me to illustrate my answer in the following way. Imagine that you and I are close friends and you have written me a letter. For me to receive your letter, you need to write my postal address on the envelope. Of course, you know my address. Therefore in writing my name and address on the envelope, you oblige the postal service to identify me as the recipient of the letter.

And so your letter starts its journey. First, it must come to Russia. In that way, by writing "Russia" on the envelope you exclude billions of people from the search for the recipient. If your letter falls into the hands of a person who doesn't live in Russia, then you can say, "He doesn't have the right to open the envelope because the letter isn't addressed to him."

Next the letter has to be sent to Pushkin as this is the town named on the envelope. In the same way other millions of people who live in Russia are excluded from the search. If your letter falls into the hands of a person who lives, say in New York, you can say, "He doesn't have the right to open the envelope, because the letter isn't addressed to him."

And so on and so forth. The field of search will get smaller and smaller, excluding more and more people until the letter lands in my post box. Then the recipient will have to be identified by a different way: the name. If my wife decides to open the letter, you can object: she doesn't have the right to do that as it is not her name on the envelope.

In that way out of the billions of people living on the earth, your letter has come to the one to whom you sent it, thanks to the name and address on the envelope.

Prophecies, like the words on an envelope, determine the characteristic identifications of the one to whom they will belong in the future. God of course, knowing the one whom He is talking about, describes him precisely and clearly. And if even one characteristic or sign doesn't coincide with the prophecy, you can say for sure, "He isn't the one."

Therefore, what prophecies are there in the Old Testament about the birth of the Christ-child? And were they fulfilled hundreds of years later in Jesus of Nazareth? And hence is the child in Mary's arms God?

Firstly, we can notice the sex of the child. The baby has to be a boy as Isaiah talks of a Son. Therefore Mary Davey Christ doesn't pass the first test: she is a girl!

Secondly, the Christ has to be born in Bethlehem. In the prophecies of Micah we find the following words:

The gospel of Luke, telling of the events of Jesus' life, says:

Micah's prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus.

Thirdly, the prophecies say a lot about the genealogy of the Christ-child. According to Scripture, the Christ must be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and King David.

Accordingly, He has to be primarily a Jew as Abraham is the father of the Jews. (The history of the Jewish nation starts from Abraham.)

In second place we need to have access to the records of genealogies to find out whether Jesus meets the given requirements. In fact, if anyone today tries to declare himself God and Christ, he will be caught out on the test of the genealogy as he can't prove his descendency by documents. But in Jesus' time there was that opportunity, as the Jews were scrupulous about keeping their genealogies. And any Jew could easily find out who his great-grandfather was even, let's say, to the 20th generation.

Jesus' genealogy is found in the gospel of Matthew (1:1-16).

In this passage we can see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Judah, and David as Jesus's forefathers.

And finally we will turn to one more prophecy - the prophecy of Isaiah (7:14):

This prophecy is very meaningful in itself. The context of the prophecy points to the events in the history of the Jews which will accompany the time of Christ's childhood and hence it indicates the interval of time in which the child must be born.

However, we will stay with the obvious, but at the same time inexplicably miraculous, fact: the child was to be born of a virgin.

In Luke's Gospel we read about the extreme amazement of Mary when the angel announces to her about the birth of a child, as Mary was not married:

Notice that the angel gives her a fully intelligible explanation: the child will combine God's nature with human nature as He will have an earthly mother and a Heavenly Father.

The life story of Jesus of Nazareth fulfills even more than just these prophecies which were written several centuries before His birth. The Bible contains hundreds of prophecies about the Christ and all of them are fulfilled in Jesus. There is virtually zero probability of them all being fulfilled either by chance or some other way, without supernatural foresight.

What conclusion does this all lead us to?

The child, born 2000 years ago in a cattle-shed in Bethlehem, to a girl named Mary, is God, who has come to earth with a mission.