God's Gift for All Seasons

 Have you ever thought about how much life relies on seasons? That cycle of life that involves new birth, growth, harvest, decay and re-birth – over and over again?

God made a promise to mankind that the seasons would always continue, after Noah’s ark survived the flood.  It says in Genesis 8 verse 22: “While the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.”  It’s a good job – even though we often complain about the weather!  This regularity is what gives life, and why no life has ever been found on any other planets.  God is in control of the seasons, that’s how He was able to make that promise, just as He is in control of all creation.

Some people who depended on seasons and cycles in life were the shepherds in Luke 2.  You can picture the regularity of their life, perhaps a life that their families had known for centuries.  And then this amazing thing happens, in verse 9: a light as bright as the sun appears in the middle of the night.  Angels materialise out of nowhere to give them a message.  The regularity of their lives is completely turned upside down with no warning it was coming.  No wonder they were scared!         

But God is not under the same physical laws we are under.  These shepherds knew that God could hold back the water in the Red Sea.  He is certainly not subject to times and seasons like we are.  And whenever something really important happens in the Bible, physical laws are broken.  Light is formed out of darkness in the middle of the night.  Angels appear miraculously.  A baby, Jesus, is born to a virgin mother.

God is trying to tell us something.  He is telling us that this baby’s life will also transcend a physical law.  This baby’s life will ultimately not end in death, like every other baby’s had done and has done.  This baby’s life will endure forever, and give new hope to mankind for all time.  This baby will one day, after the pain and suffering of the cross, be immortal.  This life will transcend seasons and threescore years and ten.

And so you will find no reference to what time of year it was in any Bible passage.  No reference to what date he was born on, or even what time of day.  Jesus never celebrates a birthday, never personally refers to his age.  Because none of that matters.  The point is that his life cannot be measured by our yardstick of time.  He is God’s gift for all seasons, and for all time.  We just know that he was born, his life had a definite starting point.  We thank God that it started, and we thank God that despite death, it did not end.