A Word About Arrivals

I mailed them yesterday. Three boxes containing Christmas gifts for my son and his family who live in Southern California. I was grateful I was the only customer when I arrived at the FedEx mailing center. And they even had carts available, so I could place all three boxes on the cart and wheel them in. I couldn’t believe I didn’t have to stand in any line.

The questions from the nice lady behind the counter started immediately. Where are the three boxes going? Zip codes. All three going to the same address? OK to leave the packages at the door or did I want to require a signature? So many questions. She asked me,”Any explosives, corrosives, illegal drugs you might be mailing?” I told her no, just gifts for the family. And then the measuring started. Width. Height. Girth of each box. And extra tape. She said my taping wasn’t good enough, and she added a lot more tape of her own.

And then, the ‘arrival’ question. “How soon does it need to get to San Diego?” That was an important question, as it turns out, because what she told me was that the sooner your package needs to arrive, the deeper into your wallet you have to dig. Ground transportation is cheapest. Air shipping is more expensive. And the cost for what she called ‘next day’ delivery for all three boxes would be the equivalent of about three-month’s salary, as near as I could calculate. The faster it needs to arrive, the more is costs to ship it. Well, next week sometime, FedEx will deliver our gifts to our kids in San Diego. I told the nice lady who was helping me that they could just put my boxes on a truck and drive them to Southern California. I don’t need them to arrive early. Just in time for Christmas.

In fact, I think one of the most important things on the minds of a lot of people at this time of the year is all that needs to happen … in time for Christmas. Packages that need to arrive in time for Christmas. Kids away at college who need to be home in time for Christmas. The Apostle Paul put some important words together when he wrote to the Galatians, “In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” In the fullness of time didn’t mean ‘in time for Christmas.’ In that sense, ‘in the fullness of time’ defined Christmas. Exactly what a groaning world needed; The Gift of Jesus to a world that had no idea what had occurred. God had arrived. Immanuel had come. The God who created time had declared it. No need to measure that incredible package when it arrived. In the fullness of time, the fullness of God in bodily form. A package sent with great love, and wrapped in swaddling clothes. A truly blessed event that heaven’s angels sang about. Not early. Not late. But the arrival of the greatest gift the world will ever know … and it didn’t arrive ‘before’ Christmas. That gift was the whole reason for Christmas.

And the gift arrived ‘in the fullness of time.’