God Is Not Bound By Natural Laws
Christmas challenges us to look into a mystery encapsulated in a conundrum and enshrouded in an enigma.
“What is supernatural about Christmas that interests Christians?” The following is an attempt to answer that in part.
First, the major miracle involved a virgin conceiving. Any person who knows anything about natural procuration or biogenesis knows that is physically impossible. That is the nature of a miracle.
Louis Pasteur, the well known French chemist and microbiologist, made this observation regarding the miracles in the Bible.
“Laws of nature are a comfort zone designed for our comfort by God. They are not a straight jacket for Him. He abrogates them as He will.” Meaning God doesn’t impose the laws of nature on Himself. He can change them to benefit His cause.
A summary overview of what that miraculous birth entailed follows.
It was as though the Trumpeters of Eternity took their stance on the turrets of time to herald Jesus’ birth. The angels proclaimed glory to God, and all heaven broke out.
The dark night’s sky formed a canopy for the Light of the World.
While Rome was busy making history — God arrived. The gospel writer Matthew reminded his peers and us that Isaiah the prophet wrote they called His name Emmanuel, which is “God with us.”
While man was trying to make himself god, like Alexander the Great and Herod the Great, God made Himself a man. While the world reeled from portentous gods Mary had a Little Lamb. Jesus was divinity dwelling in a squealing human form.
He was royalty born in a barn.
The “Great I Am” became captive to time.
At His birth the vastness of eternity was squeezed into a moment in time.
He who existed from everlasting-to-everlasting was reduced to living moment-by-moment.
He was as old as His Father and eons older than His mother.
He who in eternity leaned on the breast of His Father on earth nursed at the breast of His mother.
He could not restrain His desire for an eternal relationship with you, therefore He seized the love initiative and came to earth for you.
Now back to the scientific aspect of all this. Consider a weight, a clock, and a ruler. They aren’t always the same.
A one pound object here on earth weighs one pound because of the gravitational pull on it. On the moon that same object weighs three ounces. Could it withstand the heat on the sun it would weigh 28 pounds.
The ruler represents mass. Mass, that is the size and density of an object also varies depending on speed. Driving at 50 miles an hour your car is three ten-millionths of an inch shorter. Traveling at 90% of the speed of light it would be half its length.
Now the mind boggler. The star Sirius is nine light years away. If traveling there and back you could travel at 99.99999% of the speed of light the following would occur. Your friends on earth would be 18 year older and you would be 12 hours older.
I don’t understand all of that, but I accept it. I can’t comprehend all that is involved in the virgin conception by Mary, but I do believe it. It simply means God knows more than all of us combined. Using that love, wisdom, and power Mary brought forth her firstborn son and laid Him in a manger. I have stood in that manger more than fifty times and every time I recount, “Here, right here, the Word became flesh and came and dwelt among us. That makes for a MERRY CHRISTMAS.