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The Right Time
Around Christmas time some cult groups, extreme Christian fringe
groups and ultra-conservative Christians sometimes join forces to attack
any observance of Christmas. They express their criticism against
mainstream Christians for their endorsement of and involvement in supposed
rituals of pagan origin. They will confuse some immature and naïve people
with references to Encyclopedia Britannica, and the like. Some will focus
on the day of the month, as part of their criticism. The actual day or
even month of Jesus earthly birth is not known – and by tradition has come
to be celebrated at this time of the year. The date is not the most
significant issue in relation to Christmas. Focussing on and arguing about
dates will lead people to miss the reality and significance of God’s
timing in the Incarnation.
The momentous event of the first Christmas
was no accident – it was part of God’s plan for humanity, and it all
happened at the right place, at the right time.
Note the words of the Apostle Paul:
GAL 4: 4 …
when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born
under law,
5 to redeem
those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.
God’s timing is always right, and Paul
clearly declares that God sent his son:
When the right time
came (TLB)
When the right time
finally came
(TEV)
When the time was
right (CEV)
When the fullness of
the time was come
(KJV)
When the fullness of
the time came
(NASB)
When the time had
fully come (NIV)
When the appointed
time came
(JB)
When the appointed
time arrived
(Stern)
When the term was
completed
(NEB)
The wording makes it clear that there had
been anticipation and expectancy, as well as planning and preparation,
behind this event. It didn’t come as a last minute, unplanned accidental
thought. It wasn’t some desperate, final hectic attempt to rescue
humanity. It was all part of God’s perfect timing.
To understand this, however, we have to
unpackage Christmas from the ‘Hallmark’ sweet sentimentality, the glitter,
the commercialism, and the excuse for partying and holiday time-out.
Luke’s Gospel reveals that the immediate
Christmas events began with the announcement of the pregnancy of the
elderly Elizabeth and the coming of John the Baptist. He was to be
something of a maverick, an eccentric loner who railed against the
religious establishment and vigorously told everyone, regardless of
station or status in society, to significantly change and improve their
lifestyle or face God’s rejection. He was the one who would later prepare
the way for Jesus.
After Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah
were told by a heavenly messenger of the approaching birth of their son,
and what they were to name him, young Mary was next for the shock
announcements.
Mary, probably still in her teens, a
virgin, and betrothed to an older man, Joseph, was told, that like her
relative Elizabeth, she too would be pregnant. In those days a betrothal
was virtually a marriage that hadn’t quite been finalised and
consummated. Luke’s Gospel tells us she was
‘greatly troubled’
at the announcement. In other words, she
was in serious shock. She knew enough about the ‘birds and the bees’ –
how babies came into being - and knew that she had not been unfaithful to
Joseph, so a pregnancy wasn’t possible!! But she was assured that
‘nothing is
impossible with God’.
She wasn’t really too sure about that, but
she believed in God, and was willing to be God’s servant. She then went
and checked things out with her relative, Elizabeth – and the visit seemed
to confirm that this had not all been some hallucinatory experience.
Fine, but what about her fiancée, Joseph? And her family? And her other
relatives? And all her friends and acquaintances in her home village?
What about the general scandal all this could cause?
Joseph WAS scandalised! How could Mary
have done this to him!?
Because of the kind of person Joseph was,
and because he still deeply loved Mary, when he found out about her
pregnancy he decided to secretly separate from her and do his best to
shield her from public scorn. He had no desire to have her publicly
stoned to death for apparent adultery.
Before he could formalise his secret
separation from Mary, however, Joseph received a visit from the heavenly
messenger and told NOT to go through with his planned separation! He was
told that Mary’s pregnancy was not the result of her unfaithfulness and
any sexual relations with any man. Rather, this was an extra-ordinary
pregnancy brought about by the direct intervention of God’s Holy Spirit.
Though no fool, the down-to-earth village
carpenter, believed and accepted the heavenly messenger’s explanation.
And both he and Mary were also prepared to
obey the direction of naming the child – as had Zechariah and Elizabeth
before them. In this case they were to name their son,
‘Jesus, because he will
save his people from their sins.’
Christmas - the birth of Jesus – was
God’s deliberate and planned intervention in human history in order to
bring salvation to the people. This day was to be the day of salvation.
At the right time, God sent his son, born
of a woman, for the redemption, the ‘buying back’ (from the slavery and
destructiveness of sin), of the people. Christ came to bring salvation –
at a price! - a price that involved his identification with full human
experience, ultimate rejection, death and resurrection. This is why
Christmas and Easter must be seen together. Christ did NOT come to remain
a baby in a sanitized manger! From his birth in filthy and noisy
unhygienic conditions to his ignoble criminal’s tortured death on a cross
to the victorious glory of his resurrection and ascension – Jesus came to
bring us our day of salvation.
As Paul declared:
RO 5:6 You see,
at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly.
7 Very rarely
will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might
possibly dare to die.
8 But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
And again:
2CO 6:1 As God’s
fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.
2 For he says,
“In the time of my
favour I heard you,
and in the day
of salvation I helped you.”
I tell you, now is
the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.
Christmas came, at the right time, as the
day of our salvation.
What if Jesus hadn’t been born until
today? That would have been as bad is if he had never been born – and
possibly he wouldn’t have been born – if it had all been timed for today.
As the iconoclastic Malcolm Muggeridge
once pointed out:
‘In humanistic times
like ours, a contemporary virgin – assuming there are any such – would
regard a message from the Angel Gabriel that she might expect to give
birth to a son to be called the Son of the Highest as ill-tidings of great
sorrow and a slur on the local family planning centre. As a matter of
fact under existing conditions it is extremely improbable that Jesus would
have been permitted to be born at all. Mary’s pregnancy, in poor
circumstances, and with the father unknown, would have been an obvious
case for an abortion; and her talk of having conceived as a result of the
intervention of the Holy Ghost would have pointed to the need for
psychiatric treatment, and made the case for terminating her pregnancy
even stronger. Thus our generation, needing a Saviour more, perhaps, than
any that has ever existed, would be too humane to allow one to be born;
too enlightened to permit the Light of the World to shine in a darkness
that grows ever more oppressive.’
(Jesus – The Man Who Lives,
Fontana 1976, p.23f)
As a result of God’s timing, the coming of
Jesus Christ occurred when his life, death, resurrection and teaching had
maximum impact for all time.
Take a closer look at the significance of
Christ’s Coming – the truth behind Christmas is all about bringing God’s
day of salvation to the people of this planet. Now is the time to accept
His timing and His day of salvation.
Now is a good time, the right time, to
listen to Handel’s ‘Messiah’ and to break out with the Hallelujah
Chorus.
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