What If? - Chris Tibbetts

 

We have finally made it.  Not quite to the end of 2020, but to the week where media outlets will draft their reflections on what they saw as the most significant events of the year 2020.   In most years, these retrospectives are a mashup of important events, political, sports, and entertainment highlights.  They capture both the tragedy of human wickedness and the beauty of human compassion.  They capture both the loss and burden of natural disasters and the levity of the year’s funniest internet memes.  Undoubtedly, this year’s reflections will be somewhat different.  In a year like no other in recent history, they will invariably, and often unwittingly, project the images of a world in need of redemption.  Which begs the question, particularly in a year such as this, what if redemption had never come?

 

The Christmas season is now behind us.  The traditions, the celebrations, the harried preparations — even if somewhat muted this year — have all passed.  Pastors have both enjoyed and endured the additional preaching schedule of December.  And through it all, the incarnation has been at the heart of our actions.  We recreate the nativity scene, we sing Mary’s magnificat, and we preach of the celebrations of the shepherds and the angels.  But do we really stop and ponder, what if the Christ had never come?

 

What if sickness and pestilence ruled the day?  What if the wickedness of human depravity cascaded unredeemable?  What if death reigned eternal and the punishment due for our sins rested indelibly upon our shoulders?  What if the moments of 2020 that make us weep, left us in our tears without hope?  What if the incarnation had never happened?  What if the hope of reconciliation, restoration, and recreation had never been pronounced in the finished work of Christ?  What if Jesus had never come?

 

Our retrospection on the year that is now passing will be distinct from the years that have come before.  It has been unique, encouraging, tragic, and frustrating.  And yet, as we observe and reflect on the seemingly escalating chaos of a world in turmoil, what greater admonition could there be that our world needs to hear the message of hope and redemption?  What greater admonition could there be that we who bear the name of Christ must make him known to a world wrestling with sickness, social dynamics, political strife, and loss?  What greater admonition could there be that we who preach the good news of salvation through Christ must preach boldly, confidently, and faithfully to a people who are facing the effects of sin in their lives and in the world?  For if we don’t, the beauty of Christ, the beauty of the incarnation, the beauty of the gospel will sit with us alone.  

 

As we tarry about each Christmas enjoying the festivities and routines of the season, do we stop and sincerely consider what it is that we are celebrating?  Do we stop and sincerely consider that God did not owe us any plan for redemption?  All too often, it is easy to presume upon God for the things he has granted his people, for the grace he has extended to Creation.  All too often, it is easy in this season to take for granted the incarnation of Christ, precisely because it is at the heart of everything we do this time of year.  Precisely because we have become so familiar with it.

 

What if Jesus had not come?  What if God’s response in Genesis 3 included curses and judgment, but no promise of the savior?  What if redemptive history was merely history?  Praise be to God that the Christ has indeed come!  Praise be to God that we may echo the shepherds, glorifying God that the King has come, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.  As we reflect on the year that is passing, may we treasure in our hearts the beauty of Christ, the grace of the incarnation, and the truth that all things will be made new in Him — and may we be refreshed anew in our blessed call to bring this good news to the ends of the earth.