Galatians 4: 3-7
Theme: Christmas
JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME
As a small boy I watched a lot of Roy Rogers movies and TV shows. And it seems that Roy and Dale Evans, his wife, were always getting into trouble. Quite often a bunch of unscrupulous men would try to steal some poor soul’s ranch. In the process Dale would be captured by them and the threat of death would hang in the air. The tension would build until, until . . . Roy would come blazing in on Trigger to save the day. Sometimes he would sneak in wearing a disguise, or at least not wearing his white hat. He would throw a few punches, shoot a couple of bullets and he would save the day. It was just in the nick of time. The movies were so inspiring that I wanted a Roy Rogers hat and toy guns for Christmas. I wore Roy Rogers pajamas. I lusted after a friend’s model of Trigger he had on his dresser. There he was, the great Palomino, white mane and tail, reared on hind legs reaching for the sky. I even had a Roy Rogers lunch box to go along with it. I wanted to be like Roy and save the day and ride off into the sunset singing "Happy Trails to You."
In those days, the only unscrupulous people that I knew of were the kids down the street who would ride my toy tractor without my permission. Roy Rogers was just an inspiring story. But we all know there is more truth to that story than meets the eye. We soon realize that we are the unscrupulous men and women who must be rescued from ourselves. To our shock, we are the scandalous ones and God Himself has come to rescue us, just in the nick of time.
How do you rescue a scandalous people? God did it by disguising Himself. He became even more scandalous than we are, or so it seems. When you think about, everything about Jesus was scandalous. Beginning with his genealogy in Matthew, we find that only four women are mentioned. They are not the pillars of the faith like, Sarah or Eve or Leah. One was Tamar who enticed her father-in-law into an incestuous relationship. Rahab was a harlot by profession who helped the spies of Israel escape Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite—moabites were forbidden to enter the Tabernacle of God because they are the descendants of Lot and his daughter. And the final one was Bathsheba, an adulteress whom David had taken from Uriah, her husband. These were women of questionable behavior and all were aliens, not members of the household of faith.
Among the men listed were murders and adulterers and thieves. It is the kind of family tree that you normally would want to keep hidden. Certainly in that day, such a background would be shocking. But it was the conditions under which Jesus was born that were the most scandalous of all. Because of the joy of Christmas, we miss it. But Luke did not leave it out: "And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register, along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child."
There's the great scandal. How could they explain, who would hear their testimony? Who would believe that this child was a product of God, a miracle? What do you mean an angel told you that it was all right? Joseph you are a fool! How many whispers mocked him as he grew up in Nazareth? And even into adulthood, on at least two occasions it was thrown up in his face that his parentage was questionable.
But the greatest scandal, this One who knew the bliss of heaven lived with the pain and suffering of ordinary life. When he fell, he skinned his knees and as an infant, when he was hungry, he would cry, he felt the pain of hunger. He felt the pain of humanity. Jesus, the God-Man, came for the expressed purpose to die on the cross for our sins. He came to face for himself the great enemy who taunts us and jeers at us and reminds us that one day, he will also come for us.
Why did God choose to do this? Paul gives us the succinct answer in Galatians: 4:4 "But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." It was no accident that Jesus was born into a scandalous world. It was at the right time, the exact moment in history when it was most effective, God Himself sent forth his Son, born of a woman and born under the law. It was God's full intention that Jesus be born under the burdens and trials that we are under. The purpose was redemption.
Paul said that we were under the Law and we were held captive to the elemental things of the world. God set forth his Law to guide us. But for fallen, sinful humanity, the Law became our enemy, our accuser, our judge, our jury.
If you have not come to terms with being a sinner, then you are blind and deceived. What we need is not another plan to alleviate suffering, not another educational method. We don't need new leaders to point the way. We need to come to terms with our own sinfulness. We are not good; rather, we are moral failures. We cannot stand up to God neither can we work our way to Him. In our fallenness, we are like a broken machine, we just can't function. And we feel it. It manifests itself in depression and in tension and in anxiety and darkness and in so many other ways. We all feel it. But some of us have not named it, it is called sin.
Paul said that we were slaves to the stoicei/wn (STOICEION), the elemental principals of the world. To the early Greeks, the elements of the universe were thought of as earth, wind, fire and water. Later added to this were the sun, the moon and the stars. It was believed that the elements of the universe were controlled by spirits or gods and goddesses and that they were at constant war with each other. Thus, nature was demonized. The elemental principals came to be understood as the Spiritual powers of this present evil age. They are the rulers of this age, the principalities, powers and enemies of God of the demonic world. Their goal is to separate believers from the love of Christ. And to this end, they will use trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, destruction, hatred and death.
In our modern language, these elemental things of the world are the anti-God social forces that drive our culture. These forces are expressed by greed, meanness, sexual immorality, selfishness, materialism, power and the will to power, etc. Paul was saying that instead of belonging to God, we belonged to the demonized elemental principals. We are lost, condemned, and hell bound.
God Himself, at the right time, at the exact moment according to His plan, entered human history in order to redeem us. The one who was born under the same conditions as we are and who faced the same darkness as we do and who knows our suffering, was and is God. He is God in the flesh.
The Incarnation is how God chose to redeem us from our sin and destruction. We cannot cry out to God, "you don't understand, You are not like me, I am just a man or just a woman, I can't live as you say." God answers back, but I do know, I do understand, I became one of you.
Not only did he redeem us, he restored us to sonship. He made us His children. In the genealogy of Jesus in the Book of Luke, Luke begins with Jesus and ends with Adam and this is how he puts it, "Adam, the son of God." God fully intended for us to live as sons and daughters of God. He fully intended that we live life in an intimate relationship with the creator of the universe. Sin marred that intention, but salvation restores it. Paul says that we have received the adoptions as sons and as sons, God has sent forth His Spirit to fill us and give us the right to cry Abba, Father. We do not address God as some cold and distant god. Those who have been redeemed call him Abba, the Aramaic diminutive, the personal, yet respectful word a child would call his father, something like papa. Redemption restores us. We are no longer slaves to sin or the elemental principals of the world, but sons and daughters, heirs of God.
Why did God become flesh? What is the reason for his journey? You are. We celebrate Christmas because that virgin born Baby is our Savior, our Redeemer. "Just in the nick of time," God became flesh for you and me. You want to truly celebrate Christmas? Begin by coming to Christ by faith.