In one of his books Dr. Charles Swindoll pointed out the significance of the year 1809 to the direction of world history.
If news networks had been invented in 1809, they would’ve covered one story: Napoleon sweeping across Austria like a wildfire. Napoleon was the talk of the world, on the move from Trafalgar to Waterloo. Everything was about the diminutive dictator. However, at the same time Napoleon was marching across Europe, whole cadres of world-changers took their first breaths in 1809.
In Liverpool, Baby William is meeting the world. No one has a clue he’s destined to become Great Britain’s Prime Minister—not once, not twice, not three times, but four times. William Gladstone, born in 1809.
Cross the Atlantic to Cambridge, and you’ll hear the cry of another baby named Oliver. A prodigy, Oliver enters Harvard at 16, graduates before 20, gets his medical degree, practices medicine, and begins teaching at Dartmouth and Harvard. Today, his legacy includes a long list of still-respected books. Oliver Wendell Holmes, also born in 1809.
Travel up and cross the Charles River until you get to Boston, where another baby, Edgar, is being born. Edgar’s father quickly abandons him; soon after, his mother dies. A family named Allan take Edgar in, and he takes their last name as his middle. He becomes the father of the American short story. Edgar Allan Poe, born in 1809.
Back across the pond, journey to Shropshire, where a family welcomes their fifth child, a boy. Soon, they realize they have a young scientist on their hands. Before he dies, he’s spread his theory of evolution around the world. Charles Darwin an 1809 baby.
Over in Lincolnshire, Baby Alfred takes his first breath. Before he’s buried, he becomes the poet laureate of Ireland and Great Britain, still among the most admired and prolific poets. Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809.
We can’t leave out a one-room log cabin in Kentucky, where Thomas and Nancy are thrilled to welcome their second child, whom they name after his grandfather. They can little imagine their baby will lead the nation through civil war. Abraham Lincoln began his journey in 1809.[1]
Here’s the point - if you would have asked anyone on the street in 1809 what is the most important thing going on in the world back then, they would have probably all pointed to the Napoleonic war. But now many historians would argue that the most important events in 1809 didn’t happen on the battlefield, they happened in the cradle.
The same phenomenon happened some 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem. Even though the ruthless rulers like Tiberius Caesar and Herod seemed to be the most important people alive, there was a remarkable birth that happened under their noses, and the significance of this child would eclipse them all. Jesus Christ was born in the lowest estate, yet this one solitary life has had more of an impact on the world than all other lives combined. After all, when God Son’s stepped from eternity into time, it became the dividing line of all history – BC and AD.
There’s an interesting pattern in the Bible, when God wants to do something great in the world, He doesn’t send an army He sends a baby. The Jewish nation was started when God promised the geriatrics Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac. When the Lord delivered His people from Egyptian slavery, He sent baby Moses up the Nile. When Israel needed a judge to fight for them or a priest to guide them, there came Samson and Samuel, both supernaturally conceived.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman…” Galatians 4:4 says. It’s almost impossible to calculate how many lives were, still are, and will be changed by Christ. How odd and beautiful that Christ came as He did – tiny, helpless, poor, mostly unnoticed. If we were God, we probably wouldn’t have done it that way. But God always subverts what is expected. He baffles the wise with what seems foolish. He conquers strength with weakness. He shames the rich by choosing poverty. He changes history subtly, patiently, providentially.
A baby represents a fresh start, new life, untapped potential and of course the hope of what is to come. Christ was born, so that we might be born again (John 3:3). Through His transformative grace we can have a fresh start, a new life and a hopeful future. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). -DM
[1] Charles
R. Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,
1994), 40-41.
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