One of my more thoughtful co-workers was talking about the advantage of the world ending by a zombie outbreak. The reason that he thought it a good way for the world to end was that he thought that the world would do a heck of a lot better without us humans, and there’s something poetic about our civilization ending as it’s destroyed by us going insane ourselves and destroying it. Heck, as zombies we’d only be going quicker than we are now.

Pretty bleak point really, but not one without merit. Watching the news doesn’t really engender a lot of hope in our race, and when I look in the mirror, I realize that in many ways I’m not much better. There is something seriously wrong with the world, and we humans seem to be at the centre of it. While people blame politics (liberal or conservative), religion, ideology, technology, or even stupidity, I really think the problem goes deeper, perhaps to our very core.

So what does that have to do with Christmas? A lot.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”  

Matthew 1:20-21

Joseph, facing the soon birth of a child to his fiancee (despite his not having had relations with her), is told by God that this apparent example of something going wrong in the world, was actually the beginning of an answer to that problem at the centre of the universe, we humans and our sin.

So as we watch a world in failing economics, and with wars and rumours of wars, may we see hope, not in the coming extinction of humanity, but in the salvation God works through unlikely methods. 

Happy Advent dear readers.