The customer gives some sort of signal that the amount is correct and everything is just fine.

Since the beginning of time, God intended to dwell with his creation. In the Adam and Eve story we read that God came in the cool of the evening and enjoyed the presence of the humans and they enjoyed the presence of God.

When the humans willingly chose to disobey God's instructions, a great gulf was created between God and his beloved creation. God promised Eve that one day one of her descendants would crush the head of the serpent and the serpent would bite his heel.

Finally, when the right amount of time had passed, when the right people were in place, and the right government was in power, when the expectation among the Jews was at its highest expecting the Messiah of God and all things were lined up correctly to ensure success, it happened.

When God caused all the generations to happen in the right order so Elizabeth could be born, and married the right person Zachariah, and the day came when Zachariah was the right person chosen to burn the incense in the Temple while the people prayed, God sent the Angel Gabriel to announce to Zachariah the birth of a child for him and his wife Elizabeth in their old age.

Zachariah and Elizabeth were now past their chance of having a child, so the time was right for God to act John would be born and would be the right person at the right time to point out Jesus as the Messiah of God.

When the right person had finally been born to be the mother of God's child, and she finally got old enough, but was yet young enough to not yet be married to a human, God sent Gabriel to her and told her about God's plan for the Messiah to be born.

The right person had been born who would be the Child's protector and provider and teacher and mentor, Joseph. He had fallen in love with the right girl at the right time, and had promised to be her husband.

But before they were married, the Angel Gabriel came to Joseph and told him to marry Mary, for the Child she was carrying was God's Son.

When the right Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, was in power, and wanting to take a census, he made a decree at the right time that everyone should return to his home-town to be counted.

God had intended the Child to be born in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph were living in Nazareth some 70-80 miles away from Bethlehem, but the decree of the Emperor forced them to go to Joseph's home-town of Bethlehem.

The journey was just long enough and the terrain just rough enough and Mary was just far enough along in her pregnancy that the Child was born on just the right day, before they could even get a room at a hotel. The only shelter was a stable, and his only bed was a manger.

That time of year the nights can be very cold in Bethlehem, but God arranged the weather to be more like late spring. Luke tells us there were "shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night."

At just the right moment God's Angel found just the right shepherds and told them about the birth of God's Son, and they went and found the Baby, and Mary and Joseph, and they were just the right people to begin spreading the news about what the Angel had said, and what they had learned about God's Messiah.

Just at the right moment God put it into the head of Wise men to leave their homes and occupations and follow a bright light in the sky to find the Child in Bethlehem. They brought just the right gifts that Mary and Joseph would need to finance their journey to Egypt, at just the right time, escaping King Herod's plan to kill the Child.

We may look at the story and say, "Wasn't that amazing how everything fit together at just the right time?"

Yet, today's scripture tells us, that "When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons."

The birth of Jesus was not coincidence, not a random event, but one God had planned for many generations before him. Finally when all things were in place it happened.

Like the customer holding up a coffee cup indicates to the waiter when it is full enough, when everything had taken place that needed to take place, when all the right people were where they needed to be, and every detail was worked out all the way from which manger, which shepherds even to the weather that night, God's Son was born.

It was not accidental, or coincidental, it was intentional. God was working this out according to God's perfect plan.

That is a remarkable story, but that was then and this is now. Things are different today. Most of the time things don't work out, the wrong people are in power, the things that are happening in our lives, and the lives of our children and grand children; it is all gone wrong.

Yet, if we read these scriptures carefully, we see God's plan happening at just the right time. In the story we do not see God overriding the consent of the humans involved. God chose an old priest, who had an old wife. It was with their consent they became the parents of John the Baptizer.

It was with Mary's consent that she became the mother of God's Son. It was with Joseph's consent that he became the provider and protector of the Christ-Child.
The shepherds decided to go into Bethlehem to see and worship the Child, Jesus.
No one forced the Wise Men to leave their homes and jobs to go on a long journey bearing expensive gifts to a Child they did not know.

Now you may say, "True, but who could refuse the visitation from the Angel Gabriel? He just announced what was going to happen, or what had happened."

The Angel did not invite their decision making process. Certainly for Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God night and day, doing what God had in mind was always considered the obvious choice.

It was from what he knew about God that he struck Zachariah dumb for 9 months, and told Mary that "with God, nothing is impossible," and told Joseph that he too had a part in this miracle birth of God's Son. Should the shepherds just believe him, no Gabriel invited them to go to Bethlehem and "see" what God had done.

Friends, today I want to tell you that God is still in the business of "When the time had fully come". God's plan did not stop with the birth of Jesus, and then God just let things go to see how they would turn out.

God's plan reaches even to us and beyond us. We too are the right people in the right place, at the right time, with the right set of resources to help continue God's plan on its way to as many other generations after us God has designed.

God has visited us with the Holy Spirit. God has drawn us to himself so that we may be the children of God. Let me read some from Galatians just preceding today's scripture reading:

"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. What I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. He is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had full come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." (Galatians 3:26-4:7)

You are not an accident. God arranged for all the right things and people to happen before you so that you would live this day, in this place, as God's very own child. God has said, "When".

Now you may say, "Why me, why now, what am I supposed to be doing to complete my part in God's plan? You mean God can use me with my set of resources and abilities? What is next, what shall I do with the future, where shall I go, what shall become of me, how shall I live out today and the coming New Year?"

Those are all great questions.
Be sure to ask God, and be ready for an answer.
Today is not an accident. You are not an accident. The "time has fully come."

Amen

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