Unplanned?

You may not know this about me, but I’ve never personally been pregnant before and I don’t ever plan on being pregnant either. But I’ve been around enough to understand that giving birth probably isn’t the most pleasant experience someone can go through. I’ve heard that it’s painful, excruciating even. And sometimes there can be complications that need to be dealt with. Because of this, everything about the delivery day is planned out far in advance so that the event is as smooth and as trouble-free as possible. The route to the hospital is mapped, the overnight bag is set by the door, the doctor is prepped, the epidural is primed, sometimes even the specific date and time on which the mother will be induced is scheduled. Every detail is orchestrated as much as possible so that when the time comes there are no surprises.

Of course, not everything can be predicted. There are those unplanned pregnancies that make life just a little more difficult. And there are also those unplanned times when a woman gives birth before she is expecting to. You hear about children being born in strange or at least unconventional places because of the suddenness of the delivery or just poor planning on the part of the parents. Carrying a baby and giving birth to one is tough enough, so I’m told, without any of those unexpected difficulties that can make this scary time even more intense.

And so what do you think Mary was going through? She was a young unmarried woman in ancient Israelite culture when the angel Gabriel informed her about her unplanned pregnancy through the miracle of the Holy Spirit. And I would have to guess that in the back of her mind Mary was thinking, “What terrible timing! What is everyone going to say about me! What is my fiancé going to think about me! What are my parents going to do to me? Why couldn’t the Holy Spirit have waited just a few more months until I was actually married! Now what am I going to do!” But no matter how tough it must have been for Mary at that moment, her situation was about to get even worse.

Because it just so happened that “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world” (Luke 2:1). That meant that everyone was required to go back to their ancestral city to be counted. And Mary had to be thinking, “Not now! I can’t leave my family and my home when I’m nine months pregnant! What terrible timing!” But she went with her husband-to-be anyway, not knowing if she would be able to make it back in time. She didn’t. “While they were there the time came for the baby to be born,” the Bible says. And Mary must have thought again, “Not now! I can’t deliver this special baby so far away from where I grew up and in a town I’ve never been to before! What terrible timing!” But she couldn’t do anything about it. When it’s time, it’s time. And of course she wasn’t in a sanitized hospital room, she wasn’t in a house, she wasn’t even in a bed with an experienced midwife by her side. She was in a shelter for livestock and the only other person around was Joseph – an unmarried man who probably didn’t have the slightest idea about what he was doing. “Not now!” you can almost imagine Mary thinking. “Not here! Out of all the places in this country and out of all the times to give birth to the Son of God himself, this can’t be happening! What terrible timing!” But no matter how terrible the timing might have seemed to Mary and Joseph at the moment, as far as the Lord was concerned, it was perfect timing.

He had been planning this for ages! God had been predicting the town in which Jesus would be born centuries before it happened. God had steered the course of history so that this birth would occur in just the right way. God knew exactly how it was all going to play out long before it ever did. And so even though the people of that time might have considered Mary’s situation an unplanned pregnancy, it wasn’t unplanned to the Lord. And even though Mary and Joseph might have thought that giving birth to this one-of-a-kind child in a stable was unexpected, it wasn’t unexpected to the Lord. Everything happened just like he planned it would. That’s why the Bible says, “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son….” The place where Jesus was born and the exact timing of his birth wasn’t by chance or by accident, it was by God’s plan. And God has perfect timing.

Sin Won’t Get in His Way

That doesn’t mean that everything that ever happens is planned by the Lord. He certainly plans for everything because he knows what’s coming, but that is not the same as wanting everything to happen for the reasons that they do.

Let me give you an example from the story surrounding Jesus’ birth. The writer Matthew tells the story of “wise men” from somewhere out East of Israel following a star to visit the boy Jesus. When they arrived in the land of Judea they stopped by King Herod’s place to find out any information they could on this “King of the Jews.” Herod was a little perturbed that another “king” would be lurking around in his territory, so he had plans to trick these eastern astronomers into finding this kid named Jesus and telling him where he was in order to kill him. But after these wise men were warned by God not to tell Herod anything, Herod decided to have all of the boys in Bethlehem slaughtered who were two years old and younger.

Now did God want that to happen? Was God pleased that Herod was so paranoid and bloodthirsty that he ordered a mini-genocide of Bethlehem’s baby boys? No! Of course not! God does not like it when sinful people do sinful things. But he does plan for it. He knew Herod would give such an appalling order and so God used it according to his plan. He warned the wise men about it in a dream, he sent an angel of the Lord to inform Joseph of Herod’s plans, and he allowed this young family to escape down into Egypt for a time. Herod’s murderous intentions were certainly not prompted by God, but he used Herod’s murderous intentions to carry out his plan anyway. Because no sin and no sinful human being will ever be able to mess up the Lord’s timing. And that includes us.

We do a whole lot of things that aren’t any good! We are responsible for any number of sins that God is not pleased with, that God does not want to happen, and that God is extremely disappointed about. Our God is sickened that his children would actually produce something so awful so often. Most of what we do isn’t his plan – that’s on us! But God is not going to let our sin ruin his perfect timing. In fact, he’s going to use our sinfulness to pull it off. That’s what he did with Jesus’ birth.

“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” We are under law. That means we are subject to the laws and the commands and the regulations that the Lord lays out for us in the Bible. We are required to follow what he says and there are specific consequences for disobedience and neglect. And so when God sent his Son, he sent him “under law, to redeem those under law.” Jesus was subject to the laws and the commands and the regulations that are found in the Bible. He was required to follow what his Father said. And he volunteered to suffer the specific consequences for our disobedience and neglect. That’s how he “redeemed” us. Redeem means to buy back with a ransom price. And Jesus would one day buy us back from the chains of our own sinfulness with the ransom price of his own blood. God does not like it when we sin. In fact, he hates it. But that was not going to throw off his perfect timing in the least. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.”

God’s Timing Is Still Perfect

We receive the full rights as the first born sons of the King. He has adopted us through faith in him and because we are his sons, we will receive the entire inheritance. One day we will be given heaven and all of the riches and wealth and glory that comes along with it. And that will happen because of the perfect timing of sending his Son at just the right place at just the right time for just the right reason.

The Lord still has that same perfect timing when he deals with us right now. When we are feeling guilty because of what we have done or because of the kind of people we are, your God knows how to forgive us completely through Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection exactly when we need it. When we feel empty inside and don’t know why, our God knows how to fill us with an overwhelming joy and a crystal clear purpose through his powerful promises exactly when we need it. When we just can’t take it anymore, when our heads are spinning and our hearts are hurting and our lives are all twisted up, our God knows how to give us direction and settle us down and hold us in his arms exactly when we need it. Our God knows when we need some correction. Our God knows when we need some encouragement. Our God knows when we need some peace. And he is able to give it to us through the words of his Bible exactly when we need it because our God has perfect timing.

Mary and Joseph may have questioned that perfect timing on occasion during those hectic months leading up to Jesus’ birth, the actual delivery in a stable, and maybe even for years afterwards as they had to run away to Egypt and back up to Nazareth so that wicked rulers wouldn’t murder son. But they were in the middle of it! They were simply trying to deal with what was in front of them at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to see the big picture in those situations. Sometimes it’s impossible to see the big picture no matter what is happening. But as we look at this story of Jesus’ birth: what happened, why it happened, and when it happened, we can see that God has perfect timing. Jesus was born in exactly the right place in exactly the right way for exactly the right reason. He was conceived miraculously but delivered naturally, he was born in a stable outside of Bethlehem, and he was brought into this world to buy us back so that we could be adopted as God’s own children. That wasn’t unplanned. That wasn’t unexpected. That was exactly the way it was always going to be. Because “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” That’s perfect timing.

Amen.