Is there really a period at the end of your sentence?
As I note the one year anniversary of the passing of my father, it’s snowing in much the same way it did on the day of his funeral – a puffy quiet Christmas movie kind of snow. It is peaceful, and I am reminded of the verse Philippians 4:7, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” I miss my Dad so dearly, but it is this Biblical peace that helps me super glue the ragged edges of my heart wound. Dad’s life has come to an end.
There is a period at the end of his sentence or is there?
I’ve spent this week preparing a special family project. In an interview, I was asked about my life, but I spent far much more time talking about my family, my dad, my brother, my great uncles, my great great grandfather, my great great great great grandfather.
In this time of preparation for Christmas, we often bake cookies. The recipe my daughter-in-law makes for her children, my grandchildren, comes from their great great great grandmother. If we have and share memories, is there really a period at the end of life?
We know that Jesus promises us eternal life because He is the Son of God and Emmanuel, God is with us. So, why then was it so important for Him to have an earthly family, humans that passed away? Why do we even know about Joseph and Mary? I think God found it very important. The Old Testament is full of genealogies, but in the New Testament Luke and Matthew record the genealogy of Jesus – 14 generations worth! It is important for Jesus in order to realize how much prophecy his birth and life fulfilled.
Depending on how prophecy is counted and who is counting, Jesus fulfilled between 200 to 400 prophecies in His earthly life, no less than eight of those being fulfilled just on the day he was born.
According to an article from Empower International, “After examining only eight different prophecies, they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10^17. To illustrate how large the number 10^17 is (a figure with 17 zeros), the professor gave this illustration: If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten.
Now, Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They’ll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up the one silver dollar that has the special mark on it. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would’ve had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man on just one day, from their day to the present time.”
And that was just the probabilities for 8 prophecies – Jesus fulfilled hundreds!
But my Dad? As far as I know, there wasn’t a single prophecy about him. So why? The Wise Men went to the King’s palace to look for Jesus because He was the King of Kings, but instead, He came to us as one of us. There were no experiences on earth that we have that He didn’t experience. Poverty, hunger, exhaustion, pain, joy, love – the most important of these – love. We share our memories, our heritage, our ancestry to solidify our community and within community we are able to fulfill not a prophecy, but the greatest commandment that Jesus left us.
John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you.”
Love – it connects us and it transcends time and space. I don’t love my dad any less than I did a year ago. So, with love, no life ends in a period. In fact, no life has to end. Period. Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith and the greatest example of love made sure of that and has given us the longest run on sentence for all eternity.
