Singularity

 

Club football has paused early for the World Cup, but Arsene Wenger is quoted to have said “Christmas is important, but Easter is decisive.” That might be true of football, but, for me at least, Wenger gets it the wrong way round.

The birth of Jesus is not merely a mark by which we measure time, whether BC:AD or BCE:CE. All time (and space) folds back to the singularity, known as ‘the fullness of time,’ that is the incarnation: the Creator one-with creation; God-with-us in the person of Jesus.

A caravan of astrologer-astronomers were among the first to grasp towards this. Also shepherds, carrying the past in the footsteps of king David; and an angel army choir. The crucifixion, several decades later, demanded by humans and permitted by God, was an early and unsuccessful attempt to prevent it. But the gravitational pull of God entering the world is too great. Easter is important, it really is; but it is Christmas that is decisive.

John described the singularity as irresistible light shining in a dark field. It is the opposite of a black hole. And far from destroying everything drawn into itself, this singularity hallows every other point in time and space, welcoming, sustaining, and transforming them with its own Life. One day, all will be folded in; and then, all shall be well.

Christmas is not the prelude to something greater. It is the biggest thing imaginable, and far bigger than that.