By Pastor Benjamin Fleet
In March 2008 my wife gave birth to our first child — a girl who has changed our lives in every way imaginable. My wife and I often ask one another, “What did we do before we had a kid?”
Now that we are so entrenched into this familial lifestyle, it at times feels that we always had this room in our hearts/home/lives for our daughter. However, when I’m able to take a step back I realize that this feeling is more revisionist history than reality. When I think back to the months and weeks leading up to our child’s birth we had an inkling of what to expect, but emotionally and spiritually we were as every new parent: unprepared. How could one possibly assemble his/her heart for the miracle of a baby? I liken it a bit to preparing for a meteorite about to slam into the earth — even a small one will completely change the landscape, ready or not.
Over 2,000 years ago, in a similar fashion, this world was not prepared for the birth of a certain baby boy. Jesus Christ was born into a world so overwhelmed with its fallen condition that it was not ready to receive this divine meteorite. Before the beginning of time, God began a plan of redemption for mankind to show His grace in the most beautiful way. Just as a meteorite flies through space for an incalculable period of time, long ago God set his plan into motion by releasing His Son, Jesus, through time and space. Despite God giving foreshadowings and prophecies, mankind was never prepared, as seen in a dirty stable becoming a delivery room.
The baby was celebrated with a fear-driven genocide. News of the birth of the Savior to the world was spread not by excited religious leaders and the government, but sheep herders. We just were not ready. Then again, could the earth have ever been prepared for the supernatural love to be unleashed?
Today, many are still not ready, but the Christmas season is the perfect opportunity to point them toward the reality of our history. To be serious about the Christian faith is to be serious about not only the present but the past. To be perceptive to the history of God’s people is to be responsive to the movement of God in time. The God “in whom we live, and have our being” is revealed to us and participates with us in history. In certain dynamic moments, God invades our time, and affords us a divine-human encounter, a momentary revelation.
The ultimate act of God’s invasion into history is Jesus Christ. A child came to restore mankind as children of God and one day He will come again ... ready or not.
As time passes and I become more rooted in my new identity as a father, I become more aware of how God has enlarged my capacity to love in immeasurable ways even though I could never have fully prepared for it. Analogously, when I examine this Christmas season, I cannot help but be filled with visions of a love meteor hurtling toward us; ready to totally change our hopeless landscape. I was not prepared for how the love of Jesus Christ has and continues to change and impact my life. How could I be? Yet, He continues to enlarge my faith and fill me with His mercies each day! May our hearts be prepared for what He has for us this Christmas season. His love is on the move ... get ready.
Benjamin Fleet is a pastor of Victory Christian Center at New Wilmington.
