The year 1619 was a long time ago. Neither you nor I were
around. It is well beyond living memory or even folk memory (if there is such a
thing). It is a proper subject for historical research. Thanks to that research
there are a number of things that have been recorded for us, and that we can be
reasonably sure about. Perhaps most notably, in December 1619 the first
Africans arrived as slaves in the Virginia colony, marking the start of North
American slavery. The United States of America was not even a glint in anyone’s
eye, but we all know what that arrival heralded, and how today it continues to
have an influence on many lives. In central Europe, the reformation of the
previous century was turning ever more political and the seeds of the “thirty
years war” were being sown. Scotland and England had the same king by 1619
(James I/VI), the Tudors having given way to the Stuarts. James was happily
propounding the theory of divine right to his son (the future Charles I), thus
sowing the seeds of the English civil war. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the population
in 1619 lived, worked and died in the countryside. London had a population of
about 50 000, and the second city in England was Bristol with a population of
about half that size. Obviously there were no smartphones (yes – life is still
possible without them). There were also no railways and therefore no common
time across the country; the main mode of transport involved feet. There was no
industry (at least in the way we think of it today), and books were scarce. Formal
education was rudimentary or non-existent for many. Probably fewer than 1 in 5
people could do what you are doing right now (ie reading), and fewer than that
could write. It is a world so foreign to us that it might as well be another
planet.
Imagine you were told that someone had written something in
1619 that had direct relevance to you in 2019, 400 years later. You could be
forgiven for being a tad sceptical. Suppose it was a promise that something
amazing would happen, although even in their own time, 400 years ago, the fulfilment
of the same promise had already been anticipated for a while. After a further
400 years, you can understand why anticipation might turn to scepticism, then disbelief,
and then disappear from general consciousness. How could we even be sure of the
detail of something said or written 400 years ago?
I assume that by now you are asking what has 1619 got to do
with Christmas?
Consider the opening of the Gospel of Luke which deals with
a number of events preceding the first Christmas. Those events, which Luke
claims are part of an orderly account of the birth, life, death and resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth, mark the continuation of, or arguably the restarting of
God speaking directly to humanity after a silence of about 400 years. The Old
Testament closes with Malachi, one of the “minor prophets” (called that because
of their length, not their importance). Malachi wasn’t the last of the OT books
to be written, but his is the last of “thus says the Lord” books. At the end of
the OT Israel returned from exile much diminished. Jerusalem was re-established,
the temple rebuilt and there was a “revival” of sorts. But it all somehow seems
very low key; not like the “old days”. Malachi promises that God isn’t finished
with either Israel, or the rest of us. A messenger will come to make
preparations, and then the “Lord …will suddenly come to his temple”. And then …..
nothing. Hundreds of years of nothing. No messenger, no Lord, nothing.
History of course didn’t stop with Malachi. It wound remorselessly
on. Some of it was good; much of it was bad (at least in Israel’s neck of the
woods). They were ruled by Persians, they were ruled by Egyptians (or at least
the Greek version of Egyptians), they were ruled by Syrians. They rebelled,
were oppressed, rebelled again. Then they were incorporated into the Roman
empire. All the time, it was as though their God had stopped speaking to them. 400
years of silence. The events recorded in the Old Testament became ever more
remote. Abraham, Moses, Joshua and David had formed their history. But they
became almost mythical (no doubt there were those who claimed exactly that). The
likes of Ezra, Nehemiah, and yes Malachi, gradually shifted from memory, to history
to ….legend? Myth? Certainly little more than words in a book. Gradually the
book gathered dust. It was translated, reinterpreted, argued over. Did the
words in the book matter? Perhaps it all seemed a bit esoteric. The sort of
stuff to be left to the academics and scholars, historians and religious professionals.
But then, just while everyone was quietly forgetting all that God had said and
done through thousands of years of their history, things began to stir again. But
quite obscurely at first.
To the average Jewish person around the time of Jesus birth,
the promises of Malachi probably seemed as remote and irrelevant as things said
in 1619 seem to us. That is, very remote and very irrelevant. So irrelevant in
fact, that even quite educated people didn’t know about them. But it turns out
that what is recorded in the OT is not myth and legend, and that a promise is a
promise. God doesn’t make promises lightly, and once made they are kept. So,
after 400 years, Luke records that messengers arrive, announcements are made,
prompts and signs are provided. It is true that much of this would be missed by
many then and now. But events would begin to unfold that would be hard to miss.
Thanks to the likes of Luke (other Gospel accounts are available), who would compile an orderly record, neither those events or their meaning need be lost on us,
2000 years further on. They remain worth reflecting on.
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