We’ve just watched the latest announcements about lockdown over Christmas. It changed our plans somewhat – our son and his wife had been planning to come up this week, but they live in London…

The timing could hardly have been worse. Lockdown in a matter of hours, with only a few days to go before Christmas. First thing for them was to arrange for sufficient food – then chat with the family.

I suppose the same phrase could have been used by Mary and Joseph. ‘The timing could hardly have been worse’. Mary was pregnant, out of wedlock. But as she approached the time for her delivery, the Government imposed a set of rules which meant they had to make a 70-mile journey to their ‘family town’, mostly on foot. 

(If that happened to me, I’d have to walk to Birmingham – a similar distance!).

They both knew that God was in this somehow, but after such a long journey they found that all the accommodation was full. And now Mary was in labour. The timing could hardly have been worse.

When Paul wrote a letter to the church in Galatia, he referred to Jesus’ birth, but with the perspective of God’s plan of redemption. “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman” (Galatians 4:4). In other words, God had been orchestrating history up to this very point. The timing could not have been better. 

God had a plan for the salvation of his people that was set down before the foundation of the earth. It was made known to Adam and Eve and then throughout the Old Testament with many promises and prophecies foretelling the coming of the Messiah (or Anointed One) who would save his people from their sins. 

Everything was in place. The final part of the plan was that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. But his mother was in Nazareth. You or I might think of various ways of getting her to Bethlehem. But God chose a Government edict. The plan was perfect, the timing was perfect. 

And the result was that the Word became flesh. The second Person of the Trinity took on human form, but such that he was not born with a sinful nature. Rather he had both a human nature, so that he was like us in every way except for sin; and a divine nature, so that his sacrifice can be effective for many. (The Incarnation and the dual-nature of Christ are huge topics by the way – but certainly worth some study!).

We’re currently in the season of Advent, which means ‘the coming’. Obviously, this is related to Christmas and Jesus’ first coming. But we can’t look forward to that – it’s already happened. There is, however, something we can look forward to – and it’s another Advent which is Jesus’ second coming. 

Paul writes in Ephesians 1 (Eph 1:10) about another ‘fullness of time’. This is when God will ‘unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth’. This is not just an event in the future, but something that’s already underway which will ultimately conclude on what the Bible call ‘the Day’.

The point here is that God has his timing for everything that’s going on, and behind that is his purposes. We can often look back and see what those purposes are, but generally speaking, they’re not at all clear when we’re in the middle of things.

So where does that leave us with our Christmas plans? From our perspective, ‘the timing could hardly have been worse’. But from God’s perspective ‘the timing is perfect’. To what end? We don’t know – but maybe, just maybe, when we’re forced to break with our traditions, we might spend a bit more time on the Incarnation.

Several years ago, we did a sketch for the children where a photographer wanted to take a picture of the nativity scene. At first it was just Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus at the centre. But that was not exciting enough, so the shepherds were brought in, then the wise men, angels, animals, Father Christmas, friends and family until finally there was no room for the baby – in fact the baby got in the way so was taken out of the picture altogether. It was a valid message at the time, and still is today.

Maybe this year, God is reversing that story so that Jesus once again becomes the centre of Christmas.

When the angels announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, they didn’t say “a baby has been born to Mary and Joseph”, but “a baby has been born to you”. Echoing the words of Isaiah’s prophecy: “for unto us a child is born”.

“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift” (2 Corinthians 9:15)