God is always right on time!

Galatians 4:4 When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.

At the time of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, over 400 years had passed since the last prophecy of Messiah was given to the nation of Israel. That's like how long it's been since the Mayflower landed on the shores of Massachusetts. For many in Israel, it may have seemed that the promise was just a relic of the distant past, like the Pilgrims are for most of us.

Even the most elderly among the people could not recall hearing the prophets’ message. What had become of the word of the Lord to His people? It would have been natural for people to feel forgotten, perhaps to wonder if the prophecies were just a story passed from one generation to another, the way fables and legends are kept in popular use. Was it all just a moral lesson, repeated to keep faithful minds in step? Perhaps some just went on with life and effectively "forgot" the ancient pronouncements.

But in reality, nothing had been forgotten in the mind of God, and nothing had changed of His plan, first stated to Adam and Eve, to deliver His people through the seed of the woman. But, in God's wisdom and sovereign plan, much had to be in place on the world’s stage before the Son could make His timely entrance. His coming was not like a package delivery, to arrive “as soon as possible.” Rather, the Son of God, Immanuel, was to arrive at the pinnacle of history, when time was at its “fullness.”

Speaking of the promise of Christ's return visit to our world, Peter advises, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness. (2 Peter 3:9) God could have chosen to resolve the corruption and injustice of this world in a more expeditious manner; and in fact the most appropriate way, from a strictly legal point of view, might have been to simply wipe the planet clean of the offending humans and start creation over again with more compliant creatures. But ease and efficiency, as we conceive them, was apparently not in God's manual of redemption.

Christmas reminds us that God always acts faithfully, and in “the fullness of time.” His sense of time and schedule is nothing like our own. He has no clock to watch but that of His own wise purposes; and He’s never late. We may wait anxiously for His promises to be fulfilled, especially when the clock of our own understanding is quickly approaching the "zero hour" of disaster or frustration. But, despite the appearance of this world's events, it’s always best to let God complete His plans when the time is “just right.”