First Sunday Of Advent

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December 3, 2023 All in Good Time: The Stable’s Timely Arrival

He has made everything beautiful in its time. —Ecclesiastes 3:11.


The wise philosopher who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes admired God’s perfect sense of timing. The God of the universe, he noticed, “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

The place where we see God’s beautiful timeliness most clearly is in the person and work of Jesus Christ. As we reflect on the works of Almighty God, the words of Ecclesiastes thus also point us toward the Son who shares all divine perfections.

When we scan the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we see a Savior who always knew what time it was, starting with his dramatic entrance into the world. There was a time to be born—just the right time, in fact. The Bible says that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4).

At just the right time—when the Gentiles were tired of serving the old pagan gods, when the Jews were weary of trying and too often failing to keep God’s law, when the Greeks had given the world a common language, when the Romans had established (relatively) safe and easy travel across the Mediterranean—Jesus was born in a stable, bearing a timely and beautiful message of salvation for the entire world.

Given our desperate need for a Savior, he did not arrive a moment too soon, but right in time to do what he needed to do to save us.


Reflection: How can you make the best use of the time the Lord has given you?


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