Rev Gav

Why was Christ born 2000 years ago?

Why was Christ born 2000 years ago? Presumably God could have chosen any moment in the history of humanity to be made flesh, therefore a question for which I would like an answer is, “Why specifically then and there?” Why did God choose that particular moment in history to be made incarnate in the world? Why did the Holy Trinity choose first century Palestine as the place to inaugurate and establish their kingdom here on earth? And why did God choose to be born into the context of a Jewish religious family?

Time

As far as we can ascertain, the world is about 4.5 billion years old and Homo Sapiens as a species (that is us) have been around for about 300,000 years. That is a long time. Yet, written human history only goes back about 5,000 years, and it is probably fair to say we have only had more reliable, evidence-based history for about 3000 years (and that is pushing it). The alphabet only came into existence in about 1600BC and the real explosion in communication in the history of humanity began in about 1200AD. The point is that if you are going to influence the direction of humanity, then one of the factors is that you have to do it at the earliest point when there will be a historical record to ensure that the future will be influenced. There would be no point in starting a humanity-influencing movement if the message itself could not be relayed. It would be like building a train to go from A to B at a time when there were no tracks for it to drive on.

Place

Secondly, if you want to influence the direction of humanity, you need to do it in a place and time when humanity can convey that message geographically. Humans only began to travel from about 60,000BC. Animal-drawn vehicles probably began to be used in about 5000BC, but it was the Romans who developed significant roads to expand their empire, the first of which were built in about 300BC. Routes that were established to expand empire became trade routes, and in the same way that today we would build a gas station, hotel, village, or town at a crossroads, if you wanted to influence the world for good, you would do this at a strategically significant place — a crossroads in the world, so to speak, and first century Palestine was such a place.

The Middle East connects the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe and was on a crossroads of trade between east and west and north and south. If you stuck a pin in a map of the place that would enable the most geographical influence to the most people, at that specific time during the first-century, then guess where you would place it? You got it.

Context

Thirdly, you need context. Think of this like the soil in which a farmer grows a crop. Sure, you can plant crops in any ground, but if you want the best crop then you need to plant it in ground which has been worked, fertilised, maintained, and cultivated. If you plant a crop in shallow soil, it dies. Hang on? Did not Jesus tell a story just like this? The context in which God became incarnate, in which this influencing movement started, God’s kingdom, was in a community of people that God had cultivated for this express purpose — the Hebrews or Jewish community. This was a rich religious community with its own sense of purpose of being God’s people to bring God’s blessing to the world. There was a sense of expectation that this community would birth a king that would change the world — especially in the light of how humanity was behaving, where ruinous quasi-religious kings and oppressive empires ruled supreme. And this leads us on to the final, and perhaps the most chilling reason God chose that time, that place, and that culture to be made known.

Human Condition

The final reason I think God chose that time and that place was before it became too late.

There is a misnomer that religion causes wars, and one of the most ridiculous things I hear people say is that the world would be a better place without religion. No, religion does not cause wars. Everyone believes something. Everyone has a philosophy, a world-view, or an ideology. Everyone. What causes wars and pain and suffering is that humanity itself appears to be flawed. It is not that we do not have a choice, goodness, yes we do! The tragic fact is that we, as a species, continually and irrationally choose to put ourselves first, ahead of God, others, and the environment. The human lust for power and control and our disregard for anyone or anything other than ourselves is astounding.

If you were God, and you knew that within 2000 years humans would develop weapons of mass destruction, have dominion over the earth in ways no-one could possibly imagine; have the ability to poison the oceans, decimate and eradicate entire species, and even change the climate of the entire planet; if you knew humanity would have this kind of destructive power, when would you intervene? When would you try to start a movement that would counteract the worst of humanity and try to influence the direction of history before it became too late?

What would the world look like today if God had not intervened in the world 2000 years ago? What would it look like if people had not been made holy by God so that God could live in them by the Holy Spirit, to be filled and inspired to be God’s ambassadors and join in God’s mission to restore and renew the world? I wonder.

Looking at the state of the world, one could ask if Jesus came too late? But God is God, and God’s timing has to be right does it not?

We gather as church, this small handful of people, holding on to someone far more precious than we can possibly imagine, someone who, through their birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension has forever changed the world. We carry the torch for Jesus, and for all that is good, holy, and precious. It is our turn in the history of the world to be filled with God’s Spirit and be bringers of God’s kingdom. It is our turn to say there is a different way to live, where we do not put ourselves before God, others, and the environment, but put love, and care, and compassion, and respect for others first. It is a way of humility and sacrifice — a way modelled on Jesus Christ.

Amen.