Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

Last Sunday, we reflected on the silence of God for two 400 year periods of the history of Israel. The first was during the period of slavery in Egypt and the second was the inter-testamental period between the prophetic ministry of Malachi and that of Elijah-returned, the ministry of John the Baptist. The lengthy amount of time can seem very puzzling. What was God waiting for? Why does He seem to take so much time to do the things He plans on doing in working out his plan of salvation? The idea that God seeming to tarry a lot can be pressed even more when we consider that the blessing for the nations would come from an offspring of Abraham, but it would take 2000 years of offspring for God to get to the right one. And in parallel to this period of time, when Jesus ascended into Heaven and the angel said for Him: I'll be back! . . . well, its been another 2000 years that have gone by. Does the explanation that with God, a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years provide greater insight? Perhaps not.

Nevertheless, St. Paul's observation in our text, that God sent His Son into the world not when He finally got around to it . . . but rather, in the fullness of time, signals the recognition that God may have been silent during the 400 years since Malachi the prophet, but he certainly was not not idle. When we look at the condition of the nations and also at the remnant state of the covenant people of God, we can note the following things. The sacred scriptures of God existed only in a dead language that only a few biblical scholars could read or understand. Those who believed and worshiped the true Creator and Redeemer of the world, worship him only within a restricted land mass smaller than the state of Indiana. The ability to travel was severely restricted by a lack of established highways, waterways, and safe conditions. Countries were small; they had their own language; and they usually did not like their neighbors - periodically warring with them for some slight economic or territorial advantage. This was not a very good state of affairs to distribute the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus to the nations and to the ends of the world.

And yet, between the time of Malachi and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, that 400 years of silence between the Old and the New Testament, God was busy transforming so many important factors in the world to create a fullness of time - an optimum set of conditions for bringing the Gospel blessing of Jesus as the Christ to the gentile nations of the world. Through the influence of the Alexandrian empire, He fashioned a new people's Greek to become a universal language throughout the Mediterranean world. He then saw to it that his sacred scriptures were translated into this living universal language (the Septuagint), making the Law and the Prophets accessible to the people of all the nations. Using his favorite element, persecution - He established by a dispersion, pockets of worshiping Jewish believers throughout the major population centers of the Mediterranean world. Then through the might and dominance of the Roman Empire, He saw to it that easy travel was facilitated by highways, water routes, and peaceful conditions everywhere. Only then, during the days of Caesar Augustus, when all is ready, when all is in place for the explosion of the Gospel . . . is He ready to bring us the promised Son of Abraham, Son of David . . . His own - the Son of God. God indeed takes his time . . . but He takes His time to act only at the right time in working out his plan of the salvation of sinners.

So it was in Bethlehem, 2000 years ago . . . and so it is today, and everyday, with us. It is God's plan - so indicates St. Paul in our text - not to simply idly wait or bide his time, but actively first to prepare us and then, at the right time, to bring the saving blessings of his Son. Paul observes that God's work of salvation in the sweep of history first involved a time of preparation through a guardianship of the Law, a guardianship for those whom He has chosen to be his own people. The Law as it regulates outward peaceable life - and the Law as it reveals the depths of sin - characterized the life of God's Old Covenant rule with the children of Israel. Then, in the fullness of time - then at the right time, 2000 years after the promise was made to Abraham, God delivered his Christ to his people and to all the peoples of the world.

So also, even though we were elected to be sons and daughters of God before the foundations of the world (Eph. 1), we were also brought into this world (quite some time later!) under the guardianship of the Law - the Law as it has regulated our civil life, and as it has revealed sins and our need of a Savior . . . . So also through this guardianship of the Law, God has prepared us for the blessing of the nations through the chosen Son of Abraham. And so also, during this season of Advent, you are invited to ponder the meaning of the fullness of time in human history with God's sense of time and timing. But then also, ponder the fullness of time, God's sense of time and timing as He has been at work in your life. God has not been idle. He has been at work preparing you, his chosen sons and daughters, for the gift of his Son and His saving gifts. The saving Son will arrive for you, at the right time, in a manger. The saving gifts of the Son will arrive, at the right time, on a cross. The great blessing that Advent prepares you for is really Christmas and Good Friday combined. To prepare for the blessings of Christ's birth requires also to prepare for blessings of His death. He came into this world to die. What lies in the manger is precious, but God staked it all on a cross. And this Advent is to be your time of preparation, because it is God's time of preparation . . . because, for both the preparation and the arrival of what we wait for, the time is right.