Christmas: The Fullness Of Time Series

Timing is everything.

If you are planning to fly to Mars, you want to be keenly aware of the timing. It would take you about nine months to reach Mars, but you will need to have the right timing. All the planets move around, which means that there is only one open window when you can launch your spaceship to Mars. The best time to do it is when Earth and Mars are correctly lined up, and this happens once every 26 months.

It you are going to do an Alley-oop in basketball the difficulty of the shot comes with the timing, as the passer must toss the ball so that it is right above or at the rim at the same moment as their jumping teammate. The other difficultly besides timing, is that your teammate must be able to jump above the rim.

In politics a well-timed speech can change the course of a government and impact history.

In business It’s all about being in the right place at the right time. It’s all about having a good intuition for when it’s right to make a move. It’s all about timing.

Timing is everything.

Nothing has been so beautifully timed than God sending forth his son Jesus Christ the first Christmas morning. The apostle Paul calls this the fullness of time. It is at the right time God brought forth his Son.

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” (Galatians 4:4-6)

Nothing has ever been so perfectly timed; nothing has ever had such a profound impact on this world when God sent forth his Son Jesus. In his time, he makes all thing beautiful in his time. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Paul made a comment about God sending his son, in the fulness of time. The right time. I want to look at the Christmas story in Matthew and Luke and see how this bears out.

The Old Testament Anticipates the coming of Jesus. We find the Old Testament filled with prophecies concerning a coming Messiah, a savior. Ever since the fall of man we have lived in a state of brokenness which can never be fixed short of the intervention of God. That intervention is what the Old Testament anticipated.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care. (1 Peter 1:10)

The prophets predicted the coming of Jesus, but they did not know the time. In the early chapters of Genesis when sin broke the relationship between God and man the plan of Christ’s coming begins to unfold.

The prophets, the priests and even the kings longed for the day the coming messiah would come. After the many Old Testaments prophesies there was a period of four hundred years between the Old Testament and the New Testament known as the silent period. However, in the fullness of time God brought forth his son.

Luke 1:70 records the Old Testament anticipation of the coming salvation, (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago). There are predictions about the coming Messiah and the place, Bethlehem is foretold. “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. (Matthew 2:6 and Micah 5:2,4)

Even Herod, who wanted to kill Jesus (who was born king of the Jews), could discern the place of birth because of the Old Testament prophecies.

The prophets foretold of the virgin birth of Christ. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). (Matthew 1:22-23)

That Jesus was taken to Egypt during the time Herod was trying to kill him fulfilled prophecy. where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15, Hosea 11:1)

The Genealogy of Jesus as the descendent of King David is recorded in Detail by Luke. To a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:27) Jesus was a descendent of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah.

All of the prophets wrote anticipating this birth to happen in the fullness of time. That is where the New Testament begins. Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. (Matthew 1:17)