The Fullness of Time

 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son... Galatians 4:4 (NKJV)

In the fullness of time God sent his son, Jesus the Christ. What is this fullness, and what had to happen for it to come about? It seems like there was an emptiness of good hope for generations. Perhaps it was just a fallowness of faith that was hidden from view and eventually became overshadowed by a dark force that enticed those who had become numb - by the sadness of their meager reality - to True Life. There came about an eruption of violent, dominant excess that promised power, fame, fortune, and unlimited traumatizing abuse (physical, emotional, sexual) to those who would bow to Ceasar: It was called Empire. Either you were in or out, and the poor and disenfranchised were forced into the monolithic destruction of creation to build empire because they just wanted to feed themselves and their little ones. Yet there have always been those who consent to live out God's intention for themselves and for others. (These are people who can't be fooled - shepherds and star 🌟 gazers come to mind.) They are people trying to choose Life in the direst of circumstances without fully knowing how, yet, even so, trusting the heavenly skies, the earth beneath their feet, and the ancient promises.

Underneath the fallow "soil", something was at hand working in the dark womb of the unseen from whence renewal and regeneration comes. Seeds had been planted with God's love deep at the center. God created heaven and earth, space and time. The original intention of God's goodness and plan of Life, of Love was carried over the span of generations in the most unusual and unexpected ways.  Though "man" created separation and death, refusing to give consent to the original intention of that which was deemed good, it couldn't be so. Even in modern times, the nuclear bomb, which was intended to destroy all that is goodly created with its insidious splitting of Trinity, couldn't overcome this Creative Force. This is the Force that generates beauty, awe, wonder, rest, intimacy, abundance, community, wholeness, love, and anything that that is honorable and noble, while "man" plots disfigurement, limitation, despair, abuse, separation, scarcity, individuality, brokenness, hatred, and all that seeks uncontrolled, abusive power. The first gathers in and builds up, nurturing the soul, drawing the one who is awake into the Kingdom of Heaven. The latter salts the beautiful, ancient trees or invents napalm, without regard for the generations to come, wreaking a trail of tears while lulling the unexpectant ones to sleep through empty distractions the way that empires do. Empire tries to trick us into believing that it can be a god for the world, but in reality, this idolatry is the devil in full form.

But the Mighty One, Love Divine brings about the True Fullness of Time, and it is this Fullness that causes the seed that is being nurtured by every good thing to erupt and burst its seams.  You might try to hold it back. Good luck with that! Like the tap root of a tree in a parched, unyielding wilderness, it will smoothly glide into the Deep, slicing into clay like water and tricking the formidable granite into believing it is dust. The way it finds The Way stretches beyond the imagination. It will create cracks in places you never considered possible. And when you are awake to begin noticing that which had been there right in front of you all the time, you take off your shoes - I mean you really take off your shoes - because this burgeoning of time is the sacred space that trips you and causes you to stumble just so you might take heed of its wondrous wonder. If you are able, you might even decide to fall on your knees, and if you are superly overcome by it all, fall to the ground on your face. If not, it's okay just to sit or to recline knowing that in whatever posture you take you are in reality positioned in a place of awe and wonder. Then if you can think of a something to say, it might simply be, "Glory!" Or, "Oh, my!" Or, "I just knew it!" Then you seek to see the Christ in the simplest and humblest of forms. You will leave all things that you have and follow. And then, whether you are coming or going, locked within you is the ability to trust that all you know, all you have been shown, all that is within and without that is Emmanuel - God with us - is True. The Fullness of Time has come again. All things are made new. Now what will we do to be part of it?