Christmas 2015 - In The Fullness Of Time

12.20.15

“In The Fullness Of Time”

We scoffed at stores who set out their trees and decorations in August just before Labor Day. We rolled our eyes at shoppers who mixed the red and green of Christmas with the black and orange of Halloween in their shopping carts like some twisted scene from Tim Burton’s “The Night Before Christmas”.  We began our shopping consumer frenzy mere hours after our Thanksgiving feast, regretting that most of the “good stuff” had already been bought! Now mere days before winter’s top holiday, we are wrapping and packing and along with some 100 million other Americans, planning our trips to visit friends and family both near and far.

I remember those days before Christmas as a child when I would watch my mother cook and prepare dish upon dish of stuffing, salads, deserts, and more. We would sign card after card for cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends, most of whom we could never match a face to go with the name on the front of the envelope. Gifts would be wrapped. Preparations made. And then the moment would come when my parents would announce: “It is time.” Time to pack the car, time to visit, time to celebrate.

Each year we celebrate Christmas we are celebrating the time that Jesus was born. There may be debates as to what day it was, which time of year it was, and we can say with certainty that it was not December 25th. The beauty of Christmas is not that we get the exact date correct, the beauty and wonder we celebrate is the fact that Jesus came at all. We read in scripture that he was there before the creation of the universe. There with his Father God creating and shaping, and now sustaining this awesome spectacle that is our existence. At Christmas we celebrate that he came to earth as one of us, and that he came at the right time.

I have two children and I recall the period of time leading up to their birth and being antsy with anticipation. Each moan of discomfort from my wife lead me to believe that this could be “the time”. Unlike those wonderful Butterball turkeys we are so fond of at Thanksgiving and other holidays, babies do not come with a built in pop up “I’m done” indicator. They come when they are ready. More to the point, they come when God is ready for them to come. It was no different for the birth of his Son, Jesus.

The early church leader and writer, Paul, shares with us in his letter to the church in Galatia that “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” The Greek phrase here translated in English as “time has fully come” is sometimes translated as “the fullness of time”. It is the Greek word “play-ro-mah”, which is defined as “that which is filled”. Picture a ship in dock, filled with goods to trade in faraway places, its decks filled with sailors ready to follow the captain’s orders and bring the ship home again after its voyage. There were preparations made, positions filled, weather accounted for, tides calculated, and when the time is “play-ro-mah”, that is to say when the time is just right, they set sail. This is the term Paul uses to describe the arrival of Jesus into this world. When the time was at its fullness of preparation, expectation, and all conditions were just right – He was born!

Paul tells us that he was born to redeem us. He was born to rescue us. Redeem and rescue from what? For that, we turn to another of Paul’s writings. This time we turn to his letter for the church in Rome. In this letter we read that “all have fallen short of the glory of God” – all have sinned and this sin causes a separation between God and mankind. We celebrate his arrival for this purpose, but one might ask “why then”? Why wait to arrive on a dark night in the unimportant town of Bethlehem in the neglected Roman providence of Judah? This whole sin issue started so long before that, why not then?

I want to explore today why Christ didn’t appear when Adam and Eve first ate of the forbidden fruit? Why not present himself then as an atoning sacrifice for these two people and their sin? Why not appear when Cain committed the first murder and killed his brother Abel? Why not step in when man had rebelled so much that it made God regret creating them, causing God to destroy the earth and save only one family on an ark. Why not send Jesus to the Jews when they cried out for salvation while in slavery to the Egyptians?  God sent them a leader, a leader who took them out or Egypt and they eventually became a nation. As a nation, they asked God for a king, but still Jesus did not appear.

The people of this nation rebelled and turned away from God. God sent prophets, men to speak for him, but still the time for Jesus to come to earth was not right. The people refused to follow these prophets, and they paid the price of rebellion with exile to foreign lands. When God returned the Israelites to their land, it was men like Ezra and Nehemiah that helped them rebuild a nation and re-establish their morality. Still, Jesus did not come. Later when Romans marched to occupy the land of the Jews and they looked for a savior, he did not come as they expected. So the people of Israel and the people of the world waited and anticipated the arrival of this child. This Christ, the savior of the world.

Then the moment came. The time was right, and the Father sent his Son into the world so that the people of the world would believe in the Son and the Father and have freedom from their sin. So the Son came to earth in the form of a child. An infant. Born in an animal shelter and laid in a food trough. This one-day savior lay wrapped in strips of cloth and bore the flesh of his own creation. After all these years? After all these cries for salvation, God chose to send a baby? What type of plan is this?

It is a God type of plan. The same type of plan that gives us exactly what we need when we need it. Like Noah on the ark; one boat with one family to save all of mankind. A plan like sending Joseph into Egypt as a slave and turning him into a ruler to one day protect his family from famine. The type of God moment that leads Moses to the edge of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army bearing down on his rag tag group of refugees, and then seeing God split the sea open to provide safe and dry passage across to the other side. The type of God plan that sends a young shepherd out to face a giant with a sling and some rocks or the type of God plan which positions a Jewish girl in exile to become queen so that she can stop an evil conspiracy from killing all the Jews in the ancient world.

God has a plan. He started this plan before he laid the foundation of the universe. He regretted, he mourned, and he waited to send his Son, the perfect and final redemptive action necessary to save all of mankind from sin for all of time. And when this moment came, he sent the unexpected – a baby. This baby would one day grow to be a man. This man would die for you and I on the cross, redeeming us and freeing us from sin forever!

So why a baby? Because God demands perfection, and we are incapable of it, but his Son was able to be born as a baby, grow into childhood, graduate into adulthood, and remain perfect or sinless the entire time. He accomplished what we could not, and he finished what we could never hope to even start. Although he deserved only praise, he took God’s punishment in our place. There is a bible term for this: propitiation. A fancy way of saying that he was a substitute for us. Imagine getting caught by a parent or school principal for something you have done wrong. You face the consequences of your actions and are sentenced to disciplinary action by the authority over you. Then, at just the right time, and in just the nick of time, someone steps up and offers to receive your punishment instead. Not only that, but this person who has accepted your punishment has done nothing wrong and has all the Gold stars and stickers to prove it! That would be amazing! And while this is exciting news, because this is exactly what Jesus did for us: stepped in and took our punishment; the truly amazing part is that he shares his perfection and all of its rewards with us as well! We are rescued from all the dread of sin and it is exchanged for all of the beauty and blessing of his perfection!

Talk about your best gift exchange ever! We give him our sin – tagged with punishment and death; and he gives us his right standing with the judge (his father) so we can share in his eternally blessed life! This is the meaning of Paul’s writing that “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” This term “adoption to sonship” is a Roman legal term which indicates that we are now in full standing as an adopted child and heir to all the Father has for us! I cannot tell you for sure why Jesus did not come at one of those earlier times when it was perceived necessary. I cannot tell you why he did not wait until today with the development of technology and the means to reach millions instead of only a few thousand during his life here on earth. I can tell you that whatever the reason, it was because the time that he was born was the fully right time to be here!

What about you? What about Jesus in your life? Have you had moments in your life where you cried out for help in slavery to sin as the Israelites in Egypt and it felt like no one heard you? Have you faced giants like addiction, depression, illness and you wish you had the courage of that shepherd boy David as he stared down Goliath? Have you felt exiled from family or friends by your rebellion and disobedience? Have you ever wondered “Where is a person to save me from what I am going through?” Today I share with you the announcement that the angels gave when Jesus was born:
 “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.  Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Whatever you have done, whoever you have been up to this point in time, the wait is over. It is the fullness of time in your life, at this “play-ro-mah” moment you are ready to be set free from sin and receive your inheritance of eternal life!