“In the fullness of time.” How often have we heard that phrase with relation to Jesus’ coming? Usually it refers to the state of the world at the time with particular reference to how the Hellenization of the Mediterranean and adjoining lands followed by the rising of the Roman Empire made it possible for the gospel to be spread after Jesus’ ascension as rapidly it was.
I wonder if there is not another explanation for that phrase. Let me take you back to the tale of the patriarch Jacob wrestling with God. You will recall that God changed Jacob’s name at the time to ‘Israel’, meaning ‘one who wrestles with God.’ God told Jacob, as God did his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham before him that through them God was creating a special people. You will also recall that Jacob’s descendants, as this people of God, took on the name Israel, and now that name is applied to the nation formed in 1948 in Palestine.
So then, what might that name mean for the Jewish people? Might that mean the same for the nation? There’s another twist to this. We Christians consider ourselves to be following in the footsteps of the Jews as the people of God. What does ‘Israel’ mean for us?
Some Jewish theologians have come to understand, although they still question why, that it is the lot of the Jews to ‘wrestle with God.’ What they mean by this as I understand it is that they accept this state of struggle, but still wonder why? They continue to struggle with God over what has happened to them throughout their history, and still do. Why were they reduced to slavery in Egypt? Why were so many of their people lost because of the actions of invading empires? Why the Holocaust? And why, in particular, has anti-Semitism never ended? What is the purpose of all of this? Where is the meaning in it? And especially why, after 4000 years and more, do there not seem to be answers?
My proposition is that this goes on because the presence of the people of God is never going to be welcomed by all in our world as it is. There is another power who has been fighting God since Creation and many humans, perhaps often even unwittingly, are helping him fight his battles.
Satan would like to destroy God’s people. The treatment of the Jews and Christians throughout history is a testimony to that. To our shame as Christians, Satan has too often even been able to use us for his purposes when our actions become anti-Semitic.
But all of this is not where I am going with this. Let’s go back to the phrase I began this piece with.
We believe that God, in his love, created us to be in a mutually loving relationship with him. However, almost from the beginning, we as humans strayed from that for which God created us. God’s plan to deal with this, as we have come to know it, was ultimately for God to come among us to show us his true nature and how that could be lived out in the world. This came about through the birth, life, death and finally resurrection of the one we call Jesus. Jesus was God in human form.
But even that was not enough. We are incapable of living the way God planned it. We are going to ruin God’s plans even if it means killing him to get our way. And we know that’s what happened to Jesus.
God had even that covered in God’s plan. We believe God is love. God showed us through Jesus that the ultimate act of love is to lose your life for the other. So just when Satan and his blind and deaf minions thought they had won the victory by killing Jesus, they had actually and totally lost. Jesus’ death and our belief in and acceptance of the gospel, the good news of that penultimate historical event, turned out to be the means of our reconciliation to God.
And ‘the fullness of time?’ Yes, the Roman Empire was there. Its roads and its laws did help spread the gospel. The Apostle Paul, the prime example of the Apostles, the ones first called by Jesus himself took advantage of those factors. However, that was after Jesus’ ascension, his return to whence he came.
God’s plan was able to be fulfilled at the time in history when it was for at least two reasons. God’s people, the Jews, Israel, thought they had it all figured out as to how to get on God’s good side, to put it somewhat crudely. They, at least the leaders, had no use for Jesus. He didn’t fit Into their scheme. What was worse, it seemed he was going to destroy all their best-laid plans. They had to do away with him. They were still committing the sin of their ancestor Jacob, thinking they could wrestle with God and win. They lost.
The other reason was though, indeed the Roman Empire. The Romans wanted power at all costs. Nothing should upset their plans. So, when the Jews brought Jesus to the Roman governor Pilate, it was not that hard for him to give consent to doing away with one more zealot.
The earthly minions thought they had it all figured out. As it turned out, God’s plans were the ones that were fulfilled. Praise the Lord!
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