“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,” Galatians 4:4 ESV
Have you ever played “what if” in your head? One of my favorite sci-fi movies is called The Final Countdown in which a US Navy nuclear carrier is taken back in time to the South Pacific on December 6, 1941. The upshot of the movie is that it presents the hypothetical dilemma of “what if a nuclear powered carrier of the United States Navy with all of its firepower had a chance to stop the Japanese fleet and their attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?” Should they do it? Do they dare attempt to change the course of history? What would happen if they did?
As you could imagine all sorts of “what if” questions were raised by the film. Well that was fantasy, but in John 15:22 Jesus says, “If I had not come”. Jesus invites us to consider a real possibility. What if Jesus Christ had not come to earth? What if he had not been born in Bethlehem? What if he had not walked the dusty roads of Judea? What if he had not uttered those wonderful words we call the Sermon on the Mount? What if he had not walked on water? What if he had not made the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? What if he had never raised the dead? What if we did not have his words to comfort us, to challenge us, to teach us, and to lead us to God? What if he never died on the cross? What if he never rose from the dead? What if he never sent his disciples out into the world? Where would we be? And what kind of world would this be? How would things be different if he had not come?
I have good news. Though Jesus said, "If I had not come", there is no “what if” speculation in God. Because the fact is that Jesus did come! The angel said “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (Luke 2:10-11; John 1:14) And history itself has been changed forever. That’s what matters. For a little over 30 years the Son of God walked on this earth and nothing has been the same since. All history is framed around this Person who came in the fullness of time and whose coming gives definition to all of time.
Christmas is about God’s wonderful timing in our lives. Christmas reminds us of the fact that Jesus came to this Earth at just the right time. All the events of His arrival were perfectly planned. Jesus came no sooner nor no later than it was planned. Christmas means that God is never late. He never misses a deadline. He sent His Son into the world right on time. God’s timetable is always perfect.
The Apostle Paul in Galatians 4;4 invites us to consider God’s timing of the coming of His Son. There are two kinds of time the Bible speaks of: there is chronos time and there is kairos time, there is clock time and there is God's time. Cynics might even say there is our time and there is God's time, as in, "God give me patience, and give it to me right now"! The Bible speaks clearly about how God operates in time; both in chronos and kairos, and nowhere does it speak more clearly than in the stories of Jesus' birth.
The word "time" occurs 658 times in the Bible, 179 of those in the New Testament, 73 of those in the Gospels, and the overwhelming majority of those occurrences are in Matthew and Luke, the two who tell the stories of Jesus' birth. Sometimes the Gospels speak in chronos, in clock time, in our time, saying things like, "...in the time of King Herod..." and "...at the time of the incense offering..." and "...time to circumcise the child." Sometimes the Gospels speak in kairos, in God's time, as in "...the time came for her to deliver a child..." and "...the time is fulfilled" and "the kingdom of God has come near."
Other New Testament writers pick up the Gospel time theme: the writer of the Letter to the Ephesians says, "making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (tou pleromatos ton kairon: literally the fullness of the times)." (Ephesians 1:9-10).
Of all the kairos moments, of all the moments that God had worked and acted in history, this was the ultimate moment. Now in Galatians 4;4, "... but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son..." Now here the Greek is to pleroma tou chronou, literally the fullness of the time. That phrase is also a very picturesque Greek expression. It speaks of something that is complete and fully developed, like a ripe apple ready to be picked. Or like a pregnant woman feeling labor pains, ready to deliver her baby. A fullness that is absolute and has reached its bursting point. When we fill a glass of water to drink, we do not fill it to the rim. A small empty space is left so that we don’t spill its contents when we lift the glass to drink. . (Unless you are a klutz like me!) The fullness of pleroma is more like what happens when we put the water under a spigot and turn on and let it run. The glass fills up and then begins to spill over on the side. In this case there is no more room left in the glass for any more water.
The “fullness of time means that history was ripe for the birth of Christ. All of the chronos of the past and all of the kairoi that had gone before converged in this moment. Jesus was born at the precise second and in the precise place that God had ordained from the foundation of the world. Luke records it with these words, “While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth and she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger...” (Luke 2:6-7) But it was not only the days of Mary’s pregnancy, the normal period of gestation that was completed. It was the years, the centuries, and the millennia that had been completed. It was in "the fullness of the time.
Why was Jesus born when He was born? He was born when he was born because it was time. God does not do things early. God does not do things late. God does things in a perfect, timely fashion, just when those things are called for. And nothing in human history has been more important, or was accomplished in such a timely fashion, as the birth of the Son of God. He is the center of history. History is really His Story, planned and told by God. Secular history gives us dates and times and places and people, but only God can give meaning to history and to your history.
God has come into the world through Jesus. He’s working right now to prepare for His second coming. Some of us need to hear this because we wonder (and secretly fear) that God has forgotten us. Perhaps you come to the end of this year with a sense of unfulfillment and perhaps a sense of dread about what 2010 will bring. Fear not, child of God. God's timing is perfect. When the time had fully come, God sent his Son. And when the time is fully come, he will keep all his promises to you. Just as God’s timing was perfect in the coming of Jesus, His timing is perfect in your life. Look at the wisdom of God in sending Jesus just at the right time. If God would do that for the world, He would certainly do that for you. He will work in your life at just the right time. Trust Him in your situation. Rest in His timing. Know that He does all things well. Just as the people of Jesus’ day did not understand God’s timing then, you may not understand it now, nonetheless, it’s perfect. Maybe today is the perfect time in your life for God to move in a special way. Almost 2,000 years ago, there came a night when “the fullness of the time” had come. Today may be the time God directs your path, answers a dilemma, comforts you, strengthens you, or encourages you.
Merry Christmas,
Pastor Bill
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