Some years ago in a book called Future Shock, Alvin Toffler tried to
offer a view of human history in terms of how many “lifetimes” we can estimate
human beings have been on earth. He proposed a “lifetime” to be sixty years. It
was all approximate, of course, but by his calculations, if human beings as we
know them have lived on earth for say, fifty thousand years, then we could say
that we are living in the 853rd “lifetime.” If that were the way we viewed how
remote or how recent big events in history happened, he gave us to imagine we
could have a better grasp of our place in it if we used “lifetimes” as our unit
of measure rather than years and centuries.
That could be a new way to
describe Christmas, only some thirty-three lifetimes ago. “…And when the time
came for her (Mary) to be delivered, she gave birth to her firstborn son… And
she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger …And there were
shepherds in the same country abiding in the field keeping watch over their
flocks by night …And an angel of the lord stood by them, and they were sore
afraid …And suddenly a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.”
In terms of the long history of
humankind, the first Christmas was actually not so very, very, long ago–not as
if it were some virtually pre-historic event. In terms of the tenancy on earth
of humankind, Christmas was hardly a handful of lifetimes ago, compared to the hundreds
of lifetimes that went before. Think of how recently, within the last two
lifetimes, humankind learned to fly, produce and make available automobiles and
build roads for them, shaped sciences that have transformed life and health, made
the world truly into a global village (however quarrelsome) through computers,
instant communications, cell phones, reliable transportation, and so on, in
only the last two lifetimes. The printing press came only seven lifetimes ago,
television within one lifetime, the establishment of our own nation only four lifetimes
ago. Columbus arrived in the “New World” only eight lifetimes ago, the Magna
Carta barely sixteen lifetimes, and we could go on to countless “modern” comforts
and conveniences we take for granted and can’t imagine being without.
We who have been insiders as many
of these recent developments emerged could, of course, offer detailed
descriptions of cause and effects. However, it is far more than coincidence
that once the Gospel of Jesus Christ became part of the human equation the gift
of the freedom of the spirit opened a whole new trajectory for the history of
humankind. His birth was a Christmas gift for all of history. And while the 833
lifetimes of our tenancy continues to weigh us down with a tragic legacy of selfishness
and sin, the bright light of God’s love and salvation in Christ, the Lord of
Life, shines more than ever in its transforming power. We sing, “Joy to the
World, the Lord is come.” Indeed!
Have a Blessed Christmas!
Pastor Jansen
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