The Second Most Important Day in the History of Mankind
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Every star, every tree, every animal, was created in a state of perfection and total order. All of it was good, and God dwelt among us.
Then it happened.
Mankind made a conscious decision not to live within this goodness. Because of this, we departed from Gods presence. Many words are used to describe this: sin, “the fall”, death. I’m going to go with Chaos. Or how about Entropy.
These general principles of physics entered the world at that point. From then on, creation was defined by an endless cycle of dying, rebuilding, and dying again. Death and decay are all around us, within nature, within our nature, and it’s pretty apparent. The universe is constantly reducing to disorder.
But God had other plans for His creation.
Redemption.
Redemption wasn’t just for us humans:
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” (Romans 8:18-22)
God isn’t trying to pull His children out of the world so we can all just sit on our nice fluffy cloud, with our harp, way up in the sky, and watch the world burn. No, He redeemed it all. The full realization of Christ will mean the return of the earth and the whole physical universe to a non-entropic state. The garden will be restored, and we will dwell in it forever with God. (Apocalypse 22:5)
And it all started on that one night, about two thousand years ago, the second most important day in the history of mankind.
If you can, for a second, imagine yourself in that pre-Christmas world. Death, decay, and destruction all spin out of control, with no end in sight. The earth struggles against itself, fighting, killing, falling apart. God, the creator, the only one that can overcome this, hasn’t been heard from in a few hundred years. If you’ve seen any rendition of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” then you can visualize this concept: a perpetual winter, an evil, despotic overseer, and no end in sight.
“And unto us a Child is born.” “And they shall call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’)”
What would you have thought? How would you have felt?
This is how one guy felt: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)
Another person, a woman who’d been widowed for about 60 years, lived her life in anticipation for that moment:
“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour [that is, the hour when she saw baby Jesus] she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)
This event wasn’t just some famous dude being born for which a bunch of people were really delighted. This was the incarnation of God, and it shook the very foundations of the universe.
"Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:2)
The Magi, or “wise men”, were Persian astrologer-priests. They weren’t Jews or Christians, they were pagans. They weren’t spending their lives in anticipation for this moment, for the moment when God Himself would come down and redeem us.
They were just looking at the stars, and the stars “groaned”.
Close your eyes for a second (after you read this sentence, of course) and try to picture the clearest night you spent away from the city. Imagine the stars. Billions of them. The Milky Way.
When the Persian astrologer-priests looked up at the sky and started using their charts or horoscopes or whatever, it was very apparent to them that something huge was happening, something big enough to warrant their jumping on camels and traveling 500 miles to give presents that would cost the equivalent to a years’ salary to an infant in a cow’s trough.
The Advent of the Christ was just such an event; it was cataclysmic. It shook the very foundations of the infinite universe, from the Arabian desert to Alpha Centauri and beyond.
And the universe would never be the same.
This Christmas, amongst all the chaos of family, of food, and of presents, take a second to step outside and admire creation. Look at the trees. Look at the mountains. Look at the stars.
Remember what Christmas means not only to us, but to the whole universe.
Remember what that cataclysmic day must have been like, the second most important date in the history of mankind, second only to the day, about thirty years later, when the Christmas Mission was finally accomplished.
Then it happened.
Mankind made a conscious decision not to live within this goodness. Because of this, we departed from Gods presence. Many words are used to describe this: sin, “the fall”, death. I’m going to go with Chaos. Or how about Entropy.
These general principles of physics entered the world at that point. From then on, creation was defined by an endless cycle of dying, rebuilding, and dying again. Death and decay are all around us, within nature, within our nature, and it’s pretty apparent. The universe is constantly reducing to disorder.
But God had other plans for His creation.
Redemption.
Redemption wasn’t just for us humans:
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” (Romans 8:18-22)
God isn’t trying to pull His children out of the world so we can all just sit on our nice fluffy cloud, with our harp, way up in the sky, and watch the world burn. No, He redeemed it all. The full realization of Christ will mean the return of the earth and the whole physical universe to a non-entropic state. The garden will be restored, and we will dwell in it forever with God. (Apocalypse 22:5)
And it all started on that one night, about two thousand years ago, the second most important day in the history of mankind.
If you can, for a second, imagine yourself in that pre-Christmas world. Death, decay, and destruction all spin out of control, with no end in sight. The earth struggles against itself, fighting, killing, falling apart. God, the creator, the only one that can overcome this, hasn’t been heard from in a few hundred years. If you’ve seen any rendition of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” then you can visualize this concept: a perpetual winter, an evil, despotic overseer, and no end in sight.
“And unto us a Child is born.” “And they shall call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’)”
What would you have thought? How would you have felt?
This is how one guy felt: “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32)
Another person, a woman who’d been widowed for about 60 years, lived her life in anticipation for that moment:
“And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour [that is, the hour when she saw baby Jesus] she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)
This event wasn’t just some famous dude being born for which a bunch of people were really delighted. This was the incarnation of God, and it shook the very foundations of the universe.
"Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:2)
The Magi, or “wise men”, were Persian astrologer-priests. They weren’t Jews or Christians, they were pagans. They weren’t spending their lives in anticipation for this moment, for the moment when God Himself would come down and redeem us.
They were just looking at the stars, and the stars “groaned”.
Close your eyes for a second (after you read this sentence, of course) and try to picture the clearest night you spent away from the city. Imagine the stars. Billions of them. The Milky Way.
When the Persian astrologer-priests looked up at the sky and started using their charts or horoscopes or whatever, it was very apparent to them that something huge was happening, something big enough to warrant their jumping on camels and traveling 500 miles to give presents that would cost the equivalent to a years’ salary to an infant in a cow’s trough.
The Advent of the Christ was just such an event; it was cataclysmic. It shook the very foundations of the infinite universe, from the Arabian desert to Alpha Centauri and beyond.
And the universe would never be the same.
This Christmas, amongst all the chaos of family, of food, and of presents, take a second to step outside and admire creation. Look at the trees. Look at the mountains. Look at the stars.
Remember what Christmas means not only to us, but to the whole universe.
Remember what that cataclysmic day must have been like, the second most important date in the history of mankind, second only to the day, about thirty years later, when the Christmas Mission was finally accomplished.
posted by david t at 11:26 PM
7 Comments:
hippie
Good post, hippie. It's cool to think about what people were looking forward too when they thought about the Messiah.
Jesus was a hippie.
Except he didn't do LSD and run around naked during drum circles.
Other than that, he was a hippie.
The late Henry Morris aptly pointed out that the Bible does not tell us how many Magi there were or even if they rode camels. Like as not, there were several, and they would have had attendants and likely an armed escort. They also may well have been mounted on horses, since the Parthians and Persians (Arya) were considered to be the formost equestrians in the world at the time.
In other words, their coming would likely have been in the form of an armed caravan, and something that a former Idumean warlord like Herod would have taken notice of.
Also, I would venture to say that the gifts given were likely worth significantly MORE than what a typical Judean peasant or low-level craftsman would earn in a year -- but that's just a guess.
The Magoi (originally a Medean order of astrologers and soothsayers that probably predates the adoption of Zoroastrianism by the Achaemanids) have always intrigued me, suffice it to say.
You make many good points overall, though. Michael Card has some pretty cool songs dealing with the powerful concept of the Incarnation -- I think you'd appreciate them at least for poetry's sake, even if the music is "not your genre".
Also, you might want to alter the phrase "never to return" in your reference to 'Eden, since you correctly go on to tell us that Paradise can be, in fact, regained.
edited to remove "never to return".
Thanks, I needed to hear that. It is so easy to get caught up in all the stuff of christmas and totally forget the enormity of what happened
sorry i didn't see your email here so i thought i'd just leave a comment.
is there any chance you could change my link on your blog from cleave.blogs.com to pomomusings.com? thanks!
Post a Comment
<< Home