God Has A Plan

Well – we get the overarching biblical theme by now – don’t we? Covenant making and covenant breaking between God and man that carries on from Adam to this day. And all along the way God uses the least, the lost and the lonely to accomplish his most perfect will.

And when it comes to the one great act – the total redemption of mankind – he truly out-does himself doesn’t he. The greatest most magnificent and glorious moment in all of history and it comes through the halting decisions and fragile faith of two hick teenagers from some little backwater called Nazareth.

To get the feel for it imagine a recently married relatively uneducated young couple who live in a trailer just outside of New Castle. They have traveled for three days and nights by bus to reach Arizona so they can be registered appropriately for a new government census that requires they go to his hometown of Flagstaff.

When they get there all of the hotels and motels are full – even the sleazy run down ones because everyone and his brother and their families that had a father born in Flagstaff has returned. There’s not only no room in the inn – there’s no room anywhere.

So Joe and Mary go to the local Wal-Mart and spend their last $38 bucks on a cheap tent, a loaf of bread, a few cans of tuna fish and some V8 juice. Mary is nine months pregnant and due any day and Joe figures these things will help nourish her and the child.

Then they search for several hours and finally find a campground but when they check-in the only available spot is next to the RV septic pump-out station and it stinks so bad that Joe lets out an exasperated sigh and prepares to leave. It’s then that he spots it – a barn on some property next door and he tells Mary he is going to ask the owner if they can stay there. Mary thinks she just felt what might be a contraction – and she quickly agrees.

The owner of the property is a nervous loner and he is skeptical about the request, but the young man has tears in his eyes and his wife is clearly going to have her baby at any moment so he acquiesces. “Stay away from them cows,” he tells them. “One of them is downright mean . . . ” As they walk away he adds, “There are some extra horse blankets in the box by the far door – use ’em if you need ’em.”

And so now in the barn, with the moonlight angling across the quiet space through the cracks in the gables above, the young couple prepares to ride out the cold night tucked into a nest of hay that Joe has pulled together. But it isn’t long before Mary’s labor pains increase and within an hour they are really coming on.

Joe doesn’t know much about medicine but as a boy he did watch several of his brothers and sisters come into this world at the hands of a midwife so he’s already got a small fire going outside on the other side of the barn heating up water in a galvanized bucket he has found.

When he returns to Mary he doesn’t know what to make of the scene he finds – several animals – 3 cows, 2 horses, a mule and a few sheep have come out of nowhere and are just standing there looking at him. There are also several dogs and one seemingly very brave cat that Mary is petting next to her. She shrugs her shoulders and says, “They all just started coming in . . . A few minutes ago . . . It was like a parade. The angel I told you about didn’t say anything about this!” she laughs. Then with a half smile and furrowed forehead she asks Joe nervously, “Do you think everything is going to be ok?”

“I don’t know,” Joes says. And then with as much confidence as he can muster he adds, “But I think God has a plan . . . and that we should trust it.”

“You are right,” Mary responds. “He does have a plan . . . And we will.”

A few minutes later Joseph leaves again to check on the water and Mary finds herself alone. It is quiet except for the occasional deep breath of one of the animals – the steam from their nostrils fills the air around her and she feels as though she is being carried away by it. She drifts and then sleeps for a moment and has a dream and when she awakens it seems like hours have passed but Joe is still gone.

Suddenly she feels a deep contraction and then realizes that the child is almost here – she calls for Joseph and as he comes through the narrow door the first cry is heard and in another moment the child is with them, crying and sucking-in its first breath – just like millions that have come before and the millions that would come after . . .

Except this child is different. Just as the prophets of old, the recent angels and Mary in her magnificent words to her cousin Elizabeth have all foretold, this child will bring more than something of the divine into the world – more than something of the holy – this child will bring God himself. And there is no way they can know in this moment that even this great act of the Almighty will involve unimaginable suffering and an ending that no Hollywood screenwriter could ever conceive – given that God is God and that he could have accomplished his purposes in any way he wanted.

Or could he? Maybe this was the one and only way that God’s Love for man could be manifested – that the whole of creation could be justified – that dead dog sinners like you and me could be reconciled to him. The giving up in love, of love itself – that we might have life eternal and life abundant.

 What an extraordinary Truth. What an extraordinary Love. What an extraordinary Plan.

 – Stuart Revercomb

Stuart is the minister at Peace Presbyterian Church in Roanoke. Visit them online at  www.peace-church.net

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