December 29, 2005
Choice
Christmas 1B
“Born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.” (Gal4.4b-5a)
When God set out to redeem the mess we’d made of things — and by putting that in the past tense, I don’t mean to imply that we’ve in any way finished — the way he did it got told about in different ways. There’s Matthew and Luke with all those chummy stories about the Virgin Birth and the census and Mary’s bumpy ride on the jackass and the manger and the star and the night visitors. And there’s old sophisticated John with all his talk about Word and light being so over our heads, we didn’t get it. And then there’s Paul, of all people, trying to explain it to the Galatians by making sure they knew that whatever, God kept to the law.
After we couldn’t handle Eden’s freedom all that well, God tried the law seemingly forever and even the prophets to help us to get with it, but to no avail. So maybe Paul was only trying to be faithful to that line of thought with his counsel to the Galatians.
And then there’s surely that about God who rarely ever tries to do an end run around his creation. If the Virgin Birth was Matthew’s and Luke’s idea, it obviously wasn’t Paul’s or John’s. So what are we to think? “Born under the law” it shall be.
One of the major hurdles for some folk working a Twelve Step program to help manage their addiction is the Third Step. “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” For whatever reason, this first introduction of God into the Steps is more than some can handle. It smacks of religion. They’ve tried religion. Some clergyman has told them they don’t “have” enough faith or the could overcome all these problems with booze or whatever. All they got was judgment instead of counsel and comfort and direction.
For some, though, when they realize that it’s their understanding of God rather than the God of their understanding to which they’ve been trying to commit not only their life, but their will, as well, they wake up. Any God limited to our understanding is no God at all. It’s only us. And “us” has not done all that well managing our addiction up until now.
So, back to Christmas. God’s incarnation in Jesus, that is when the Word became flesh or the Virgin herself gave birth under the law what else on earth could that mean other than God took the Third Step. God turned his life and his will over to a human being as he had created human being, as he understood human being.
Well, so what? Isn’t it safe to say that God had a better understanding of human being than we have an understanding of God? So God doesn’t take anything like the kind of risk the Third Step’s asking us to take? True, maybe. But then, there’s the bit about freedom. To be created in the image of God, that is, to be a creature of God’s imagination, and to be born under the law to be given the gift of the freedom to choose. And if that’s not God’s taking a risk, I don’t know what is.
At Christmas, God redeemed the mess we’d made once and for all. But thank God, the redemption continues, barely keeping pace with our freedom. Redemption’s still available, but don’t forget Isaiah who, in a moment of forth telling, wasn’t so sure when he said, “Seek the Lord while he wills to be found… ” (Is 55.6). Anyhow, the Third Step’s still available. It’s a handy way for anybody to use their freedom to start the New Year.