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The Fullness of Time - a Homily for the Nativity "But when the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law." (Galatians 4:4) The gospel is quite clear that Christ was born at the proper time … in the fullness of time God sent His Son. Yesterday we heard in the reading of the Infancy Genealogy that there were fourteen generations in each of the three major epochs leading up to the birth of Christ. St. Matthew records this in order to show two things about God’s timing; in human terms, it was a long time a-coming and in divine terms, it was according to God’s plan and promise under the Law; the Torah for the Jew, the five books of Moses within the Old Testament for us. Quite clearly, St. Paul’s insights from the Apostle today configures with the Jewish expectation of the Messiah in the Gospel of St. Matthew. Firstly, and chronologically, it was a long time a-coming. 42 generations is a long time to wait for the coming of Jesus. This generation cannot wait the span of one human life for anything let alone the 42 that the People of God waited for Jesus. Everything in our culture has to be NOW. Mass consumerism is built on such absurdity. Christmas, therefore, bids us to wait a while … maybe even dying with our hopes and dreams unfulfilled, but knowing that our children, or their children, or their children … and so on, will reap the reward. This extremely long term view is necessary because human culture is organic. Things don’t happen overnight and valuable change takes time; God’s time …. which leads me to the second point. God sent His Son in the "fullness of time." This works on many levels. At a personal level we can say that there had been no one before like the Theotokos. She was Israel’s richest fruit, matured over a long time in the vineyard. From her, the pure wine of Christ flowed. At the national level we can say that Israel was ready for God’s intervention in the flesh. Political aspirations had been constantly dashed over many centuries with succeeding waves of barbarian conquest, often seen as God’s judgement on the nation’s waywardness and unfaithfulness. First the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then Greeks, then the Romans; Israel had, apart from a few hotheads, despaired of "princes who couldn’t save." God’s opportunity! At a global and even a cosmic level, this was the right time as the Roman Empire had managed to connect up vast expanses of the ancient world. The communication and social infrastructure was already in place. God’s coming marked the beginning of the modern world and from there it is only a small jump to the galaxies. It was also the right time because in some hidden way, non-Jewish cultures had become extremely receptive to the message of Christ. The pagans with their fruitless sacrificial rights and nature mysticism were reaching out toward something real but whose shape and form they could not yet see. The Greeks had developed a sublime philosophy and science that predisposed them to see Christ’s as God’s foolish wisdom. The cross earthed Greek knowledge in the things of this world and not the Platonic archetypes of the next. So, when Christ came in the flesh and when his message was preached across the whole known world there was a ready response. Nonetheless it took 400 years for the gospel to take root properly here in England and 900 years for Russia. Where does this place us now? What is God’s fullness of time today? When will Christ be reborn in a western culture that has become apparently so cynical and hardened? God knows! We could say that it is taking a long time for West and East to realise that the Holy Roman Empire is neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire anymore. Welcome to the modern world! What God does in the fullness of His time in the next Millennium (which starts next week!) we can only guess, but it will not be built upon the political realities or legacy of the first or second thousand years of the Christian era. Perhaps this means that we have to return to basics, to where this story began, a story that every succeeding generation has made its own. Here is a child in its Mother’s arms who is God. Here is a Man, the Man who will lay an eternal claim on all human life and through us to the ends of Creation. Here is the One who shows all life what Life is about. Here is the One whom must worship and adore. Then, spiritually, we shall be ready to storm again Parliament and all the high citadels of Man! Fr. Gregory |
