God and Sinner Reconciled – Saturday, Dec 5

Timing, they say, is everything.   Whether it is timing how long to bake the cake or casserole in the oven for Christmas dinner, or what time it is when the kids wake you up to open their presents on Christmas morning.  Timing has its place at Christmas.

But the coming of Jesus…the birth of Jesus also is about timing.  “In the fullness of time,” Galatians 4:4 tells us, “God sent forth His Son…”  The phrase “fullness of time” deserves some attention to understand what this verse is actually saying.  The word  “fullness” is a word that means “to bring to completion, to make something whole.”  It can be used to mean the act of filling a basket or patching a hole.  But here it is best understood to say that the time was complete.

That means that the birth of Jesus, nor the birth of any child, is a random act.  Children do not just happen.  God carefully orchestrated the birth of Jesus and the surrounding circumstances.  He put people, governments, soldiers, shepherds, and even a king in place.  And when the time was completed, THEN and ONLY THEN God “sent forth His Son (that’s DEITY), born of a woman (that’s HUMANITY), born under the Law (that’s HUMILITY).”

His Divine mission, His human transmission, and His physical flesh (born under Law as a Jew) were all placed together in a massive accomplishment of Divine intervention… of a miraculous spiritual interposition… and Christ was born.

A more perfect time, a more perfect moment, a more perfect Christmas could not have existed.  The Holy Child, born to a virgin mother, in a Jewish family, under Roman occupation, during Herod’s rule, with a carpenter for a stepfather.  All in the timing of God.

And, though it may seem long in coming, God’s timing is ALWAYS best!


“When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman; born under  the Law,   in order that He might redeem those under Law, that we might receive adoption.”   (Galatians 4:4-5)

FOR REFLECTION:  How has the timing of God proven best in your life?

 

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