The final countdown

We live in a world managed by time and schedules.  Google calendar, and to a lesser extent, ical, runs the lives of the human beings here on earth.  Though they have largely taken the place of paper calendars, there are still paper calendars around, and they are still consulted fairly regularly.  For my money, when I was growing up, we did the dodo calendar thing.

I bet you’re not familiar with this, but it had five columns, for the five of us in the family, and then all of our activities were visible at a glance for that week….as long as you remember to write it all down, which you might not.  Be that as it may, back then as now, you write your events down in the calendar, and then you can keep track of everything as you need to.  No problem there.

But here’s the thing, which is that after an event comes up and is marked, then you can, you know, stop counting down to it, right?  The great countdown to Christmas has come and gone and is now over.  We now no longer need to count down to Christmas day, given that the 25^th of December has come and gone and is over for the year. And yet, somehow, this jpeg still exists:

How? How is this a thing?  I mean, I know how it’s a thing, but typically the whole point of counting down to something is counting down to its completion.  That is, you count down the days until the event happens, then you get to move on to other things, or so you might think.  But these days, we’re on a bit of a loop.  And it’s a sort of perpetual loop,  and you can tell that it’s a loop, given that you know where people were on the day that the elf above talks about, right? Boxing day (St Stephen’s day, or the day after Christmas for those who are in places other than the larger anglosphere), is a huge shopping day. That’s when all the deals start, that’s when things are cheap, and that’s when we get back to the mall after having been away.  For a day.  And after having complained about being at the mall so much.  You see, the loop hits, we get to moving in a very disappointing circle, where we are induced to shop and spend, counting down to the day when the shopping and spending is over, and then it starts back again the next day.

But perhaps you can imagine a day when the shopping is done.  I suppose not this side of paradise, but try to imagine a time in which such things would be done, and you’ll get closer to imagining the relief felt by Simeon and Anna as they saw the Christ child in the temple.  Simeon and Anna are people, to be sure, but they’re also representative of the larger people of Israel.  They’re representative of the people who had been waiting since the time of creation for redemption to happen. For the story of the scriptures is the story of redemption, of salvation.  It’s the story of a human race who, when presented with even one thing that was forbidden, still failed.  And when they sinned and fells short of the glory of God, when they became sinful, God, at that moment, made a promise to the man, to the woman, and to the devil: that there would be enmity between them, and that the devil’s power and authority would be overthrown by the son of man.  That promise was the promise of redemption, the promise of salvation, and the promise that the sacrifice for sins would be fatal to the one undertaking it, though he would triumph through it.  That story runs right the way through the Old Testament, you know.  From Abraham being sure that God would provide the sacrifice so that his son would be saved, to the Exodus, where the eldest children of Israel were saved and the eldest children in the homes of the Egyptians were killed, to the continual commemoration of the redemption of Israel through the need to redeem every firstborn child, this story runs through the Old Testament.  

Now for what’s important about this.  If this story has been going on, as we believe it has, since the beginning of time, really, can you imagine the situation in which Simeon and Anna, representatives of Israel, were actually able to see and to touch the redeemer? They were people who had spend their whole lives waiting for the Lord’s anointed, and in addition to them, the rest of Israel had been as well.  They were people who had been desperately watching and waiting for the coming of the king of kings, of Emmanuel, God with us, and now he had arrived.  And the great thing about this interaction is that after Simeon and Anna find the Lord, they stop looking.

Just like when Christmas comes, most sensible people stop, you know, counting down until Christmas, in that same vein, when the messiah arrives, Simeon, Anna, and hopefully everyone would stop looking.  But they don’t stop looking, do they? They don’t stop looking at all.  They keep on looking super hard. Think of it just like a boxing day sale, really.  Think about how we get into the situation where we have just opened all the gifts we can possibly handle, then immediately go back to the store for more. Now think about how the Pharisees dealt with Jesus, about how they resisted his word and fought against his positions.  Think about how they wanted to trap him with ‘gotcha’ questions, how they wanted to push back against his words actions.  What they were doing was unwrapping the present and then immediately looking for another thing.  If you can understand why we are like this with gifts and items, then you’ll be able to understand why we are like this with God as well.  Which we are.

But when we’re talking about gifts, it’s worth talking about how James views gifts, saying to us

Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. All gifts that truly bless us are God's gifts. And cometh down from the Father of lights. God, the Creator of every light of the material world, and the source of all moral light.

All good and perfect gifts are from God, including the biggest and best gift of all, the gift of Christ.  And the wonderful gift of Christ is that when it is given, or received, then we get to stop looking for more.  When Jesus speaks of himself, he does so by saying that if we eat of this bread, then we will never be hungry again, if we drink from this water we will never be thirsty again, if we receive salvation, forgiveness, paradise, we will want for nothing anymore. In the world we live in, we’re always looking for the next thing, but in the divine, there is a way to satisfy our cravings, our desires, our wants.  Desires will one day be satisfied, peace will be found, and it won’t be about just having a temporary thing to keep you happy then to look for the next thing.  Permanent satisfaction.  Eternal satisfaction.  Eternity, lack of scarcity, that’s what this is all about, you know.  Where your needs are met, and your desires are satisfied, where for once you get to stop looking for the next thing, and being content with what you have, which is all that you need.