Christmas comes on December 25 every 365 days, whether we are ready or not. Are you ready for Christmas? Or do you need a little more time to get ready?
Christmas involves an assortment of obligations, duties, activities, observances, and traditions. These activities are compressed into our already frazzled lives. Christmas is going to come regardless of if you have sent the cards, lighted the tree, wrapped the presents, or done all the shopping. It takes a lot of time to prepare and observe Christmas traditions and activities.
If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t have time for Christmas.
Time is the one commodity that we can’t generate more of. We can make additional money. Energy can be enhanced. But we only have 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in a day. No more, no less.
Isn’t it interesting that time is made for consumerism at Christmas, but is time made for the Christ of Christmas?
What if Joseph said, “I don’t care what Caesar Augustus ordered, I don’t have time to go to Bethlehem to pay my taxes. I have got some bookcases to build.”
What if Mary said, “I’m too young to have a child, it will demand too much of my time, and, furthermore, I’m not married, I’ll have an abortion.”
What if God said, “Send my Son to earth? You got to be kidding, I don’t have time for those God-forsaking people. And, anyway, it is a stinky, dirty planet.”
But Joseph did not make that statement, and neither did Mary or God say those things.
Christmas is about a God who made time and came at the right time. Listen to these two verses. “While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born” (Luke 2:6 NIV). “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4 NIV). These verses are tied together referring to the birth of Jesus. “The baby” in Luke 2:6 refers to Mary’s baby, Jesus. A very human baby from a very human mother. “His Son” in Gal. 4:4 refers to God’s Son. A very divine baby from a very divine father. In these two verses the whole theology of the incarnation is unveiled: this baby of Mary’s, God’s only Son, was totally human, yet totally divine.
The reference to “time” in both verses arrests my attention. “The time came” and “When the time had fully come.” God made the time and at the right time in history Jesus came.
God didn’t say, “I don’t have the time.” Rather, he said, “I’ll make the time.” God’s Son was born on that first Christmas morning. And, it was all for us. God made the time and sent his Son at just the right time out of his love for you and me.
I’m glad he did. Aren’t you?
