At Christmas, God fulfills His purpose — and gives us ours
I have long been fascinated by the beautiful, cosmic terms Paul uses throughout his letters to describe the place of Jesus in human history.
Take, for example, Ephesians 1:9-10:
And [God] has made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ.
This is a powerful picture at any time, but it takes on a special resonance at Christmas. The threads of each of these verses, woven together, reveal an intricate tapestry of a God with a plan and purpose for human history.
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Martin Luther King Jr., echoing the abolitionist minister Theodore Parker, often said that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." We see in this passage that God does not stand far off from the affairs of human beings, but guides the world toward his good purpose.
The pivotal point in God’s plan is precisely what we celebrate each Christmas: his entrance into the world in human flesh in the person of Jesus.
The Incarnation of Christ — leading, as it did, to his death and resurrection — comes, as Paul puts it, at the fullness of time; it is the culmination of God’s purpose in human history. All of creation was waiting with eager anticipation for the coming of the Messiah.
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This idea is expressed powerfully in Phillip Brooks’s classic Christmas hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem:"
"O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting light;
the hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight."
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The greatest of human hopes — redemption, restoration, eternal life — are met and validated in the coming of Christ. The greatest of human fears — sin, death, separation from God — are met and answered in the coming of Christ.
When God’s people heard the word Christ — Messiah — they expected a conquering king that would free them from Roman rule and restore the kingdom of Israel to its past glory. These were the fears they expected Jesus to assuage.
Instead, the promised Messiah came as a vulnerable baby boy, born in a manger, far from the cultural centers of power and influence. This makes no sense if Jesus was a political savior. But He wasn’t. Rather, He came to destroy the works of the devil, chiefly the supremacy of death and sin.
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J.R.R. Tolkien, master storyteller that he was, coined his own word for the moment in a story when all hope is lost — and then is suddenly found again; the moment when evil seems triumphant — and then is suddenly overcome by good. He called this kind of moment eucatastrophe ("good turn") — the opposite of catastrophe.
To Tolkien, this was not just a concept that existed in mythical stories, but one that had played out in an ultimate way in the real world:
"The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. ... There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true."
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Lost as we were from the fall of our first parents, our story appeared to be a dark and a hopeless one — until Christ entered in. The arrival of Jesus was the turning point of the entire human story. Thus, the angels, when proclaiming the birth of the Christ Child, announced it as "good news of great joy for all the people."
It remains good news for all people today, not only because God has achieved his purpose in the story of Christ, but because he invites us into that story, and, in so doing, offers us our own greater purpose.
Jesus said that the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but he has come that we may have life, and have it abundantly. Christ has come to give us the kind of life and purpose we have always longed for — true purpose and true life: the life of the world to come.
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This is what we were made for. This is the way the world was meant to be. And that is what Jesus came to restore all those years ago and what He will fulfill when He returns. But until then, He has invited us — His people — to join with Him to bring the Kingdom to earth, here and now.
God has created us for a purpose. He has given us work to do as participants in his story. He has prepared good works for us — we have the calling, the opportunity, and the privilege of walking them out.
When we love and serve our neighbor, when we work for justice, when we choose the right path over the easy path, — when we walk with Christ and bring others to walk alongside us — we bring the kingdom of Heaven to Earth.‘
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We shine the light of Christ, the same light that shone forth from Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
This Christmas, as we remember the culmination of God’s purpose in the coming of Christ, we are invited to find our purpose. We are called to take our place in the story as God redeems the world; to find the places where our deep sense of purpose meets the world’s deep need.
I pray that we are attentive to God’s voice and answer His call.
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Brooks’s hymn fittingly concludes:
"O holy Child of Bethlehem,
descend to us, we pray;
cast out our sin and enter in;
be born in us today.
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We hear the Christmas angels,
the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel!"