2012 will be remembered as the winter solstice with its ‘end of the world’ forecasts and ‘dawn of a new age’ predictions. Which will it be? The mystique around 12/21/12 is centred around a combination of the Mayan calendar ending its 5125 year cycle, and the sun being aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years –which is all very intriguing.
Jesus spoke about the end of time when he said that,
“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.” . . . “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:25, 28)
If the signs are telling us anything, it is that the grand future hope of a new world will be arriving soon with the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Our redemption is close, and this is the reason to get up and look up with great anticipation. What’s more, these signs tell us to prepare our hearts by living in that future hope now.
Jesus also said, “People can’t observe the coming of the kingdom of God. They can’t say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ You see, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17.
In saying this, Jesus reminds us that we have no further to look than in our hearts and in our current dilemmas to find God. Looking for a solution ‘out there’ to our problems can hinder us from benefitting from the changes we can experience now. As one author has put it,
“. . . if you feel you’ve got a problem to solve that is ‘out there’ and you don’t see or want to see any possible relationship between the ‘you’ who is trying to solve the problem and what the problem actually is, you may wind up not being able to see the problem accurately, in its fullness.”
God is active within the dysfunction of our families, our churches and our whole society. He is working to complete his good purposes in and through his people. The beginning of seeing our problems clearly is to see our own contribution to the problem. By suspending the old story we tell ourselves and opening ourselves up to the possibility of another script, the one that God is telling us, we are empowered with the prospect of new possibilities. It might amaze us how the things we can’t untangle begin to solve themselves when our desires line up with God’s.
This Christmas let’s invite the hope of the world to reside in the messy manger of our lives and watch what he will do.