Christmas seems to come around more quickly every year. The older I get, the faster it comes. Some of you know what I mean. Time is funny that way. As the length of our lives increase, the timespan of a year becomes a smaller portion of that greater span. So, in our minds, time moves more quickly. We all remember when we were children, Christmas seemed to take forever to come. That’s because a month or two was a very large part of our lives. We counted the days. And the more we counted, the longer Christmas took to arrive. But you know what? The 30 days before Christmas are, and always have been, 30 days before Christmas, no matter how old we are. Neither ignoring the calendar nor staring at it really changes anything. Time is set. And Christmas always arrives at the same hour. Something about that is reassuring. There is a comfort in the repeating seasons and dates on our calendar.

Time is the tangible outworking of God’s providence. We use clocks to keep track of time, but God has a divine clock which initiated the beginning of time and moves time along its intended course. We tend to think of time going on forever. But God exists outside of time. He is the author of its beginning and end. “In the beginning God created,” not just the cosmos, but time itself, as the cradle in which God would place His beautiful creation. Outside of this cradle is not more time, but timelessness.

As we read through John’s gospel, we notice that Jesus has a keen eye on this divine clock of God’s providence. Over 20 times He makes comments like “My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4) or “The hour has come” (John 4:21–23) or “My time is not yet here” (John 7:6–8). Such statements not only acknowledge God’s providence but recognize a divine purpose in Jesus’ life. Jesus knew He had a destiny. Before He ever came into this world on that first Christmas night, the path of His life and death was determined by the Father. That path was the work the Father sent Him to accomplish. This is why John tells us in Revelation that Jesus is the Lamb who was destined to be “slain from the creation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Jesus, who exists in the timeless realm of eternity with the Father, entered this finite realm of time to accomplish the work of living a perfect life to the glory of His Father and then, after living that life of sinlessness, suffering the ultimate penalty of death as though He were a sinner. For what reason would the Father send the Son to perform such a work? Didn’t the Father love the Son? John answers this by speaking repeatedly of the love the Father has for the Son and the love the Son has for the Father. But he also speaks of the love the Father and the Son have for humanity, which was caught in the eternal grip of death: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).

The Son’s redemptive death freed us from that eternal grip, and His resurrection brought eternal life. Paul tells us that in this work is the “fulfillment of all the ages” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

And so, God’s divine clock has as its reference point not the first day of creation as we might assume, but the day Christ entered this world to accomplish this one great work of salvation. It was the very first Christmas which God placed as the center point of His clock of the ages, and time works backwards and forwards from that point, in the same way that our number scale works backwards and forwards from zero. The work of redemption is God’s ground zero. We see this reflected in the way God separated the Old Testament from the New. The coming of our Savior is the focal point of that division. Everything prior to Christ’s advent was the “former age.” Everything after Christ’s advent is the new age or the “last days” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

Our Gregorian calendar mimics this same outline. The year is 2018 AD, (Anno Domini) which is Latin for “the year of our Lord.” Jesus came 2,018 years ago. Before that coming, everything on our calendar is BC (Before Christ). We currently have the alternative nomenclature of CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before Common Era) which was instituted to be sensitive to many other faiths which use this same calendar. But the division point remains the same. It recognizes that God centered the clock of this world’s history, not from the point of its original creation, but from the point of Jesus coming into this world to bring new creation.

John’s gospel keeps our eyes focused on this divine clock. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, He attends a wedding feast at Cana. As the feast prematurely runs out of wine, He performs His first miracle and changes water into wine. Even though He manifests His glory in this sign, He tells His mother that His “hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). As Jesus teaches in the temple, the authorities attempt to arrest Him, but John tells us, “no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come” (John 7:30). But, in the final week of His life as that hour approaches, Jesus says, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour” (John 12:27). And John likewise tells us in the next chapter “Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father” (John 13:1). Like the movement of a clock, there is a movement in John’s gospel toward this final hour of Jesus’ life. Why such a strong emphasis on “this hour”? Is it the importance of that hour? Is it the anticipation, or the dread? Is it a reflection of Jesus resting in His Father’s perfect providence? It very well could be all these things. The ultimate truth is Jesus recognizes that the purpose of His coming into this world was wrapped up in this hour of His greatest humiliation.

In this all-important hour Jesus was crucified on a cross, but what did that accomplish? Many men had been crucified. That hour had to contain something more than His death. The night before Jesus died, He prayed to the Father and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him” (John 17:1–2). Jesus realizes that the hour of His humiliation earned Him the right “to give eternal life.” His death, unlike anyone else’s, was redemptive, not only because of who He was, but because He had a unique relationship with the human race. The Father had “given him authority over all flesh.” By this relationship, He died in the place of us. Or, as the Apostle Paul tells us, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Tied to Jesus’ crucifixion is this work of redemption. Tied to His death and burial is His resurrection. Tied to His resurrection is His glorification. And tied to His glorification is the giving of life eternal. And so, Jesus ties to this hour everything He came to accomplish. And with His last breath He says concerning that hour, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

But the hour Jesus speaks of is not just a finishing point, it is the beginning point of everything being made new. As Jesus ascended to His throne, He ushered into this world the life of a new creation. As He rules on His throne, He ushers a new life into us, so that we can now live life in a new way, the way of His love and His life. The hour of Christ brought to pass the beginning of a new world, so that we can look forward to a restoration of all that is yet to be right in this world. It brought to pass a new opportunity for us to participate in that restoration. And yes, it brought to pass the spirit of what Christmas is truly about. We think of Christmas as a time of renewal. The source of this renewal is found in the hour of Christ. We live in the life and the light of that hour. The lights on our Christmas trees remind us that Jesus is the light of this world, and that He gives us light to be a light to each other in our darkness.

Are we anxiously waiting for Christmas to come, like children in front of a calendar? In one sense we should be, because the fullness of Christmas is not yet here. We long to see the end of pain and suffering, of war and hatred. And, with childlike hearts, we long to see peace and happiness. We anxiously wait. But in that waiting, let us be a part of relieving that pain and suffering. Let us be a part of bringing peace and goodwill to mankind. Let us help to feed those who are hungry and clothe those who are cold. Let us be a part of bringing the life and light of Christmas to where we live. The beauty of Christmas is the beauty of Christ and the new life He brings.

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).