Until now, I have never lived in one place for too long. My daddy, before he retired from the Air Force and my late husband’s profession caused us to relocate, time and again, every four years. Once, when we did live in the same area for eight years, halfway through, we moved from the city to the country. My oldest, when in high school, was jokingly asked by one of his friends if he thought his parents would ever give up their nomadic lifestyle and finally settle down.
Moving was always an adventure. Besides the headache of packing and unpacking and finding those two ever-so-important-people in your life, your doctor and your hairdresser (you might think I’m joking about the later, but I’m not) it was downright fun. Living in the North, the South, the Midwest, and both coasts, there were so many interesting people around every corner to meet and wonderful friendships that were waiting to grow. Becoming part of the culture where we were transplanted—from taking on the local accents and vernacular, to adopting sports teams as our own—we enjoyed life, seeing the possibilities and the adventures, always in the present. But when my late husband passed away, as if someone had drawn an indelible line from the sky to the ground, we began to see everything through the lens of before and after.
Any momentous occasion marks pivotal moments in time; the beginnings and endings of wars, victories and defeats, launching manned spacecraft into outer space, landing on the moon—to name just a few—but none in history, until the birth of God’s Son, Jesus, was so momentous that it affected how time itself was marked. Unlike myself and my family’s loss, it wasn’t the excruciating separation of God, the Father, from Jesus, His Son—when He took our sins upon Himself descending into Hell—that was the hinge pin of the change, it was actually His joyous birth.
Heralded by the angels and notated in our calendar as AD, Anno domini, Latin for “in the year of our Lord,” from that moment, time began to move forward. Before His arrival, the years progressed backward, 6 BC, 5BC, 4BC, etc. This system of specifying time was not implemented until approximately six centuries after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, but even so, that is not what matters. It is not who started it or when this delineation occurred, but that it has continued, that it IS. This is huge. Laws are passed. Events happen. Powers are toppled. Dictators come and go. All fade and pass away. But when Jesus was born, everything, even the passage of time, distinguished His arrival.
Today is the beginning of Lent, the season when we, as Christians, reflect on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem; His road to the cross, the horror of His death and ultimately, the beauty of His resurrection. As sobering as it is to think on, it is very full of promise.
It is so easy to get caught in what’s wrong with our world and our lives. But just as God didn’t mark the ages with the agony He knew His Son would face, but looked instead with joy at the birth of His Son, we too should strap on courage not looking at the circumstances of our days—of our own making or life that is beyond our control—with despair, but with hope. For that is why Jesus came. To give us eternal hope. Putting away evil forever. Saving us from ourselves and out of the fallen world we live in. Setting us free from sin and death, forever wiping away the tears from our eyes.
The redemption that was born on Christmas Day is so beautifully written in the song, Beautiful Scandalous Night, by Bebo Norman and Sixpence None the Richer. I hope it blesses you as it does me.
Kimberly
