Janie B. Cheaney: The birth that broke the cycle

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, December 25th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

What world events do you remember most vividly? Perhaps the Challenger explosion, or the fall of the Berlin Wall. The terror attack on September 11th.

When epic events shake the ground, people often say things like: “this changes everything,” or “the world will never be the same.” Sometimes it’s true.

EICHER: WORLD commentator Janie B Cheaney says Christ’s birth might not have made headline news at the time, but it is an event that altered the course of all history.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: The event that really changed everything was remarkably undramatic. Except for angel sightings in the sky and a single wandering star, it looked like an ordinary birth. Movies and artwork almost always picture the scene at night, surrounded with a heavenly glow. But it just as likely occurred in the daytime, with the clamor of street vendors and the squeal of animals masking Mary's birth pangs. It was a world ruled by cycles: the turn of seasons, the rhythm of religious festivals, the rotation of stars. Empires rose and fell and nothing really changed. The thin cry of a newborn baby registered not at all, but it signaled the birth of something new: linear time, forward motion, progress.

Progress brought us to a world bursting with prosperity, but also greater potential for evil. What will it take to send us all sliding back to the law of the jungle? How deep must we scratch the veneer of any modern to the blue-painted pagan beneath?

Not very deep, I'm thinking. But dystopian anxiety isn’t the true story. The universe may contract someday, but history will not. There is no going back to a pre-Christian, cyclical, pagan world.

That world had a certain guileless innocence about it. When Naaman the Syrian met the one true God, he was allowed to capture, to escort his pagan king to the Temple of Rimmon. Even the sophisticated Athenians saw fit to build a monument to placate an unknown deity—which Paul turned into an object lesson. In the past, he told the agnostics on Mars Hill, God overlooked their ignorance. But those times were over. No more groping after God: God has come to us, and he "will judge the world in righteousness through the Man whom He has appointed."

Moderns may play at paganism, but the real pagan world is behind us, as distant and unreachable as the garden of Eden. The ancient gods have dropped their masks to reveal the demons they really were. Christ has planted Himself squarely in history like a bronze serpent on a post. The world is linear--beginning at Creation by Christ, building to redemption in Christ, ending with the return of Christ.

That's bad news for the unbeliever. But for those who look to Him, it changes everything. We don't know what lies ahead, but it will not be a return to endless cycles or expansion and decline. However difficult, the future will be progress, as God in Christ leads a triumphant procession. Silently and scarcely noticed, the Infinite slipped into the bloodstream of history, and the world, truly, was never the same.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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