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From the First Baptist Church in America pulpit
The Fourth Sunday in Advent – December 24, 2006
“In the Fulness of Time”
Galatians 4:4-5
Dr. Dan Ivins, preaching

After forty Advent seasons I have begun to detect certain patterns. I’m impressed at the diversity reflected in the New Testament about Jesus’ beginnings. Mark, our earliest Gospel, begins with Jesus’ baptism. The first gospel didn’t think his birth was worth mentioning. Neither does John. Rather, he hops over the baptism and the birth, before creation morning, a mystery we call “pre-existence.” Whatever that is! The Fourth Gospel gives us the loftiest view of Jesus.

Only Matthew and Luke employ the birth narratives. Luke tells it from Mary’s perspective, and Matthew from Joseph’s. Both mention signs of heavenly approval bolstered by angelic choruses. Matthew tells of Herod in Jerusalem and Magi from the East. Luke reports about the innkeeper and shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem. In spite of the differing details each birth narrative declares that heaven had intersected earth with redemption. “You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21).

The only other time the birth of Jesus was mentioned came from the pen of the Apostle Paul, who concurred with Matthew as to the “why” of it: “God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4). “Born under the law.”  From his birth, Jesus was subjected to the same legalistic system of domination that he came to redeem us from. “Born of a woman,” not a virgin. (Paul was more interested in Mary’s gender than her purity.)

All “in the fulness of time.” What’s full about it? Several things, no doubt. He may not have been wanted, but he was sure needed. The human heart may not have been ready, but it sure was weary. The time was ripe because religion had failed badly. All of this made the time pregnant for God’s Messiah. Jesus was born when Rome ruled the world. Legions trampled over every road. Caesar was a god and ruled with an iron hand. Into the face of such raw power, the Apostle dared to say that’s precisely when: “In the fulness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman...” A woman? An infant? Versus the mighty Romans?

Delivered by a teenage girl in the outbacks of Bethlehem, on the fringes of the empire! It would’ve been madness then to think that after two millennia, millions of people would be gathering all over this “terrestrial ball,” to worship in the name of Mary’s Baby! The New Testament isn’t just diverse, but it’s also staggering. That something so unpromising and vulnerable has been so decisive, so that we measure all time against it. Everything that previously happened is before Christ, and everything that happened since, is Anno Domini. The eternal-now of God’s perpetual-coming among us, that we’ve come to celebrate as “Christmas.”

Matthew said we are to call him “Jesus,” because he’s made out of the same stuff we are. But also “Emmanuel,” because he’s made out of the same stuff God is. And he won’t let either of us go: bringing man to God, and God to man. Jesus Christ is decisive. Many decisive infants have been born. An Egyptian slave girl shoved a cradle out among the bulrushes and crocodiles of the Nile, to survive or perish. What immense issues went floating down the river in the person of Moses.

During the mid-19th century in this country, the forces of disunion were threatening our nation. In frontier Kentucky, a woodsman built a rough-hewn cabin on Nolan’s Creek, where a baby was born. Who can imagine what America would be like today without Abraham Lincoln? Or what Roger Williams did for religious liberty? Or Martin Luther King, Jr? These people have given us a glimpse of the ugliness of prejudice like few others have done. Decisive babies all. But none more than Mary’s. Anybody who can bend the datelines of history around an unpretentious stall has to be the most decisive on earth. “Born of a woman. Born under the law, to redeem those under the law.” And that’s what he did. In so doing, he enabled us to be better humans and the world a better place. Consider some ways.

For one thing, he gives us hope, when things look hopeless. With babies, you never know what might happen. Around the corner in some crib today may be an infant who’ll push open a new era tomorrow. The Roman Empire eventually crumbled to the ground. But to this day multitudes still sing “O holy child of Bethlehem, descend on us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.” If you and I are to trust the creative forces to which the future belongs, we have to hope for something newborn out there, maybe even now growing among us. Who doesn’t need to hear that today?

I swear I’ve never seen so many catalogs! We hadn’t been in our latest place to live a week, and we were inundated by sale catalogs. You’re familiar with it: the contents fall into three categories: stuff we neither need nor want; stuff we want but don’t need; and things we might need, whether we know it or not. I’ll admit to being “had” recently with a gadget I just had to have. I like flexibility, so I got this neat combination lighting and magnification device. It comes in handy at darkly-lit, romantic restaurants, where I don’t want to wear my glasses to see. When the waiter gets that $$ look in his eye, voila! I pull out my trusty credit-card-look-alike with its nifty light and magnifying glass! What more could a guy want?

It hit me that Christmas functions like that double-vision-gimmick card: it illumines things we don’t normally see, making possible the discernment of something that’s there all the time, but hard to see without aid. How does the pun go? You can observe an awful lot by watching! Herod believed in brute force and violence. The Wise Men worshiped at the crib of a newborn. They didn’t listen to Herod or Caesar. They watched a baby, not the imperial power that loomed large and seemed permanent. They watched what God was doing in an infant. That’s the biblical mark of wisdom: those who followed a star till it stood over a place where something “born of a woman” lay. Each time the world reaches an impasse, a child is born and a new way opens up unsuspecting hopes. Jesus was the magnifying glass where “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” It’s part of what Paul meant when he talked about “the fulness of time.”

Consider also that before the “time became full,” a lot of plain people had to come first. Isaiah the Prophet foresaw a time when “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb” (Is. 11:6). John the Baptist would “prepare the way,” to “make the crooked places straight.” Joseph of Nazareth, was “caught between a rock and a hard place.” After being illumined in a dream, he decided to swallow his pride and take Mary as his wife anyway, and raise Mary’s baby. And Mary herself. What if she’d just said “No way Hosea!” Instead of “Let it be to me according to Thy word?” What about the scholars in the temple who listened to his questions? Or his friends at Bethany who supported him when he was down? Or the twelve, who gave up everything they had to follow him? Multitudes of people, with God working through each of them, enabled Jesus to be great. No decisive baby got that way without many others to look after them along the way. Even Jesus grew up to say, “Greater things than I have done, you will do.” Everybody’s important. God has something for all of us to do. You never know how that will contribute to “the fulness of time.”

Few would disagree that Christ is decisive. The question is, is he decisive for you? He was to the shepherds, but not to those in the inn. He was to the Wise Men, but not to the religious authorities of Judaism. It's that way still, isn’t it? For some Jesus is still decisive. But to the vast majority he is not. Santa Claus is more decisive than Jesus! Try to find a parking space over at Providence Place! Christmas is not about who comes down the chimney, but who comes down from heaven! Santa brings us gifts. So we buy and spend like crazy! Yeah, we can blame it on the Wise Men, but Jesus asks us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. That’s all we can do, because God gave us a Jesus we can follow, but not control.

While Rome was busy making history, Christ came and Rome missed it. While Jerusalem was keeping the law at Solomon’s temple, God pitched his fleshly tent on straw, in a stable, under a star. The world never noticed the time was full. It didn’t skip a lick, as the most momentous occurrence in history happened right under their noses.

“In the fulness of time,” said the Apostle, the world was still reeling in the wake of all the “greats.” Alexander the great. Herod the great. Augustus the great. But they weren’t all that great, just powerful. So the world overlooked “Mary’s little Lamb.” It still does. I know you won’t.

Closing Prayer: Gracious God, our prayer this Advent season is for all who have come with us to Bethlehem. We pray for those who are busy, hurried, and preoccupied like the innkeeper, that they may know the peace that comes from a genuine act of hospitality. We pray for those like Herod, who have power, that they may use it with good will. We pray for those who are poor and lonely and cold like the shepherds, that they may hear the good news. And we pray for ourselves, who need encouragement and peace, in this starlit season, on this day of all days...and all the rest of the days of our lives. Amen.