The Fullness of Time

Galatians 4:4–6

ANY SIGNIFICANT BIRTHS IN the year 1809? Here’s a list of a few:

William Gladstone was born in Liverpool.

Alfred Tennyson took his first breath in Lincolnshire.

Oliver Wendell Holmes cooed in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Edgar Allan Poe began his brief but tragic life in Boston.

A physician named Darwin named his firstborn son Charles.

A windswept log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky, sheltered the birth of a boy named Abraham Lincoln.

It all happened in 1809—virtually without anyone noticing or caring. But go back nearly eighteen centuries before that, and you discover another baby was born in obscurity—born against the sparkling backdrop of Rome.

The whole world was on fire with the flames of Rome’s rampaging expansion. What could possibly have been more important than Caesar’s decrees or Rome’s massive building programs? While Rome was busy conquering the world, another Conqueror slipped onto the scene quietly and humbly, in a cave in Bethlehem. How silently He came.

He came not to conquer the world, but to conquer the human heart with His love and grace. Paul wrote,

When the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. . . . God has sent the Spirit of his Son in our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.”

GALATIANS 4:4–6

Twenty-one centuries ago something significant happened. While Rome was busy making history, God arrived. He pitched His fleshly tent in silence on straw . . . in a stable . . . under a star. That’s so like our Savior. Quietly, humbly making His entrance. That’s still how He moves. He will not storm the fortress of your stubborn heart. Instead, He stands patiently at the door, knocking, as He waits to be invited in. Will you let Him in this season? Do you have room for Him today?