At Just The Right Time: A Sermon For The New Year

At Just the Right Time: A Sermon for the New Year

Galatians 4:4–7 NKJV

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

About fifty years ago, Andrew Lloyd Weber created a new musical called “Jesus Christ, Superstar.” It was perhaps an attempt to make Jesus relevant to an increasingly secular and skeptical age. However, it was a highly irreverent work. In the song of the same name as the work, the voice of Judas makes many outrageous charges. Jesus is mocked as a misguided martyr. One of the lines questioned the timing of Jesus’ arrival in 4 BC, seeing it had no mass communication. This brings up a good question. Why did God choose that time to bring His Son into the world? Weber’s charges are, of course, blasphemous. Who are we to question God, especially in this way? It could be simply answered “Because God said so.” But is there a right way to contemplate the timing of God? Let us see.

Let us first remember is that God is God, and we are not. God is all-knowing, not just of current happenings, but all future happenings as well. God is also all-powerful and can bring whatsoever He wills to pass. Whereas we might have partial power and might appear to be able to influence future events as well as to make predictions about these events, our ability falls far short of the power of God. We need to go no further than tomorrow, which is New Year’s Day. All kinds of resolutions will be made, usually to amend some fault on our part such as losing weight. We will start this on the second of January as there is no use missing the New Year’s Party. People will make predictions of what will happen in 2024. Will the war in Gaza spread to the Middle East? Will we have a recession? What will the weather be like? We would like to know these things. However, it is humbling that weathermen are far from perfectly accurate about the upcoming weather, especially as one looks past the next few days.

New Year’s is a time to try to feel optimistic. It is far too depressing otherwise. People hope that the New Year will be better than the old one. Maybe it will be, maybe not. It may be good for some but bad for others. Who knows, but God? We think of the great chapter about time in the 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes, which was put to music by Pete Seeger and sung by a group named the Byrd’s. To everything, there is a time and a season under the hands of God. Seeger hoped that it would be a time of peace rather than war. the song adds to the text: “I hope its not too late.” Will it be a good year to have a child? Or will someone we love, die? The Book of Ecclesiastes tells us that the timing and acts of God are inscrutable. Trying to figure out the meaning of life is meaningless without God.

So let us humbly realize that God is in control of these things and works them out according to His purpose. So we must realize that when God sent His Son to earth somewhere around 4 BC, He knew what HE was doing and why He did it. I said about 4 BC, because we do not know the exact time of Jesus’ arrival. Nor do we know the time of His return. what we affirm is not that He was born on the 25th of December in 4 BC. We affirm that the Divine Word became flesh of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit. He did indeed come into our history which is bound by time and space. 4-6 BC is a good approximation. We don’t know in our time, but it was the perfect time for God, whatever date that was. We might also look at the times we live in and speculate whether this will be the year that Christ returns. Only the Father knows the time. But this time is fixed in His mind. when we look at the signs of the times and what we read from the Scripture that it may indeed be the year. But it may not. However, we live every day in expectation of His return. our salvation is not based on getting the right date but being in the right relationship. We need to be found on that day being faithful servants.