The Fullness of Time

Sermon for First Sunday after Christmas

Galatians 4:1-7

December 28th, 2025

But when the fullness of time had come, 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.

Only three more days and 2025 comes to an end. Has it really been 26 years since the turn of the millennium? It doesn’t seem that long ago we were facing all the fears and uncertainty of Y2K. We are now over a quarter of the way through the 21^st Century.

With every decade that passes the years only seem to accelerate. The summers are gone in the blink of an eye. Christmases come and go at a rapid pace. In a moment it will be January and the Lenten season will be on the horizon. Once we enter the season of Lent our eyes will begin turning towards spring, and Easter. Where does time go?

Our perception of time changes as we age. As a young child a year felt like an eternity. The summers were filled with innocence and joy and a freedom that seemed would never end. Looking back it was like a dream. The dog days of summer eventually ended and before you knew it a new school year was underway. Fall would slowly make an appearance, the leaves would turn, the temperature would drop. And then the waiting for the first snowfall and Christmas would begin. It felt like an eternity.

Christmas would finally arrive, and as a child it seemed bigger and brighter, the sounds and scents and flavors of the season more intense. The gifts better and more exciting. December 25^th was the pinnacle of every year in the life of a child. If only we could hold onto that excitement and innocence and ability to live in the moment and enjoy it to its fullest like a child again. We seem to have lost that as adults.

As a child life was an adventure. Everything was new, fresh, and exciting. So many things to explore and discover. It felt like time revolved around you and you had the power to push off getting old.

But here we are. Decades later, no longer children, and the summers are mostly just busy and gone in a flash. And the Christmas season with all of its anticipation and joy is done and over as quickly as it began. Just like that another season, another Christmas, another year in the books.

Life under the hands of earthly time is bittersweet. We love the sweet and long for more, but we know in this mortal flesh we have much bitterness yet to face. As the years pile up behind us we begin to see more and more that this earthly life can’t give us everything we hoped it would.

Life is a difficult pilgrimage that won’t last forever. Along the way God is doing His work in us to save us.

We can’t slow time down and we can’t go back and redo or undo anything in the past. But Paul points us to a specific time that gives meaning to every moment in our life along with hope for the future. A time in which God came into our world in order to give us meaning and purpose beyond today. Beyond past failures, sins and regrets; beyond future uncertainty.

But when the fullness of time had come, 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.

The fullness of time is the specific time in history determined by God before the foundation of the world that the Word of God would become flesh for us. God sent His Son, Jesus born of a virgin in lowliness and humility to run His course to the Cross and save us.

Jesus is the Word of God become flesh. His birth was the beginning of His journey to the Cross to redeem us from our bondage to sin and corruption.

Everything that happened before the birth of Jesus pointed ahead to that one time in history where God in the flesh would appear. Everything that has happened since, points back to that time. That means our past, our present and our future hope is firmly grounded in a specific time and place in history where God was working to save us.

The historical fact of Jesus birth, His perfect life under the Law for us, His suffering and death in our place and His resurrection to eternal life. All of it happened within time at a specific place at a specific time. It was God working in Jesus to save us.

The fullness of time is when the Word of God became flesh and began His course to the Cross in our place. That changes everything. Our whole perception of life under the hands of time now finds eternal meaning in that fullness of time when the Word of God became flesh for us.

Our steady march in time from the font to the grave is not an easy pilgrimage. Along the way we are afflicted and worn down by the sins that weigh heavy on our minds. We battle against ourselves and those around us, especially those we love who God has placed into our lives. We feel guilt and shame from past decisions and sins and failures. We face doubt and uncertainty looking into the future.

No one understands the thoughts that weigh heavy on our minds. Anxiety and worry jolt us awake at night. Sadness and depression seem to appear out of nowhere. It feels so often that we are enslaved to all of these emotions, thoughts, feelings, and actions in this broken flesh as we journey through life. It is life under the Law in this body of flesh in which we cannot redeem ourselves.

We often seek freedom and deliverance in things that only work to further enslave and burden us. Desires of the flesh that only give birth to more sin and oppression. We look at our work and attempt to live righteous but so often only see sin and failure. This is a life under the Law that seeks to free itself and find meaning in earthly treasures and personal worthiness along with our ability to appease God.

The freedom and deliverance we need will never be found in ourselves or in the world.

But God sent forth His Son into our flesh to redeem us. That’s the joy of Christmas. Christmas is all about refocusing our eyes of faith back to the fullness of time in the history of the universe when the Word of God became flesh for us. This coming of the Son of God into our flesh inaugurated a new age in the history of humanity. It was the beginning of the end of the course to crush the head of the serpent and redeem us from our bondage under the Law. Apart from Christ we remain enslaved under the Law seeking hope and salvation in places and things that will not save us.

But God sent forth His Son. He ran the course to the Cross under the Law for us. He met the demands of perfection and gave the sacrifice needed. That tiny babe wrapped in rough, dirty, swaddling cloths finished the course. From the womb to the manger, to suffering under the Law, to the cross to the grave and back to heaven. The work is finished.

Paul wrote a few verses before our epistle reading in Galatians, that baptized into Christ we are all sons of God through faith. We are children of God. For everyone who is baptized into Christ has put on Christ (Gal 3:27). And He has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal 4:6-7).”

The slavery you feel under the hands of time, the corruption of your flesh, the oppression of this world is your sinful flesh fighting back against the work God is doing in you. Take heart, God will finish the work He began in you. You are filled with the Spirit and clothed in Christ today. If God is the one fighting and working in you, you can’t fail, because God doesn’t fail.

That’s why we live by faith and not sight in this body of flesh. Faith does not lose heart when things are falling apart around us. Though your outer self is wasting away as the years progress, your inner self is being renewed day by day with the Spirit and the Word of God at work in you. This light momentary affliction is preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

What your eyes see in the world and in yourself is not the eternal reality that God is working in you. We look beyond today to the unseen things of God with faith. And the unseen things are eternal. They are not confined under the hands of time burdened by the Law and the corruption of our flesh. They stand into eternity in the gifts of the Gospel given to you in Jesus. Those things were won for you on the Cross by that lowly baby born in a manger, under the stars in the little town of Bethlehem.

That lowly infant born of a virgin in meekness and humility became a man and made to the Cross for you. He endured your plight under the Law. He took the weight of the world and your flesh and your sin and your death into Himself. He endured and persevered all of it for you. Then He nailed it all to the Cross in Himself and said, “It’s finished.” And if Jesus said it’s finished, it’s finished. Your sins are forgiven. You are redeemed. You are a new creation in Christ today.

Time can keep on marching. The world can crumble around us. Our bodies and minds can weaken and suffer the effects of time, but today we are sons and daughters of God baptized into Christ Jesus. We are filled with the Holy Spirit who is our guarantee of eternal life to come. God is the one preparing us for life beyond this mortal realm.

So take heart when you see the effects of time press hard against your minds and your bodies and the world around you. Remember this earthly home is only a place of preparation for eternity with Jesus. Jesus has come. The work is finished. You have been redeemed. You are baptized into Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit who brings you Jesus in His fullness again and again.

You will endure because He did. You will persevere, because He did. This mortal life will end under the hands of time, but you will live into eternity because Jesus was born and He made it to the Cross for you. That’s what Christmas is all about. Thanks be to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.