Next week we will flip the page on our calendars and discover that there is no next page. We have to replace our 2025 calendar with a new one that is labeled 2026AD. (Probably our calendars won’t say the AD part but it is understood.) That date marks the number of years since the year zero when world history started over.
What does AD mean? It’s Latin for “in the year of our Lord.” Every year our calendars tell us how many years it has been since Jesus, our Lord, was born. Approximately 2026 years ago there was a major turning point and history changed. History was no longer BC (Before Christ), now it was AD (the Lord’s year). This turning point has been called a corner in time, when time itself changed direction. The first Christmas was that corner!
I first encountered the idea that Christmas is a corner in a book by C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite Christian authors. He wrote many books including some science fiction novels. In one of those science fiction stories, Perelandra, he told the story of Ransom, a man from earth, who traveled to the planet Venus in order to warn the first human couple on that planet, the “Adam and Eve” of Venus, not to sin as our original parents had done. In a conversation with the “Eve” of Venus, Ransom was surprised to learn that she already knew about Christmas. She didn’t call it Christmas but she knew that God had become a human on earth, and she called that event a corner in time—not just for earth but for the whole universe! As she said, when God became man, time turned a corner, and times do not go backwards!
Ransom reacted with surprise to her statement: “Can one little world like mine be the corner?” And she replied, “I do not understand. Corner with us is not the name of a size.”
What an interesting thought! You don’t call something a corner based on its size. Christmas is a corner. Christmas is the corner. The birth of a little baby in an obscure town on earth was the turning point in history! We don’t call it a corner because it was big or little, size doesn’t matter. Christmas was actually the biggest turning point in world history, the biggest turning point in the whole universe, the biggest turning point in all eternity— but at the time it happened it seemed pretty small. When Jesus was born, the world hardly noticed. The newsmedia, the politicians, the clergy didn’t know and didn’t care about the birth of a baby. Maybe a few shepherds, maybe a couple of astrologers from a country far to the east who spotted a new star in the sky, they noticed; but for most people this was just one more baby born to a poor family in a small town in a third world country—no big deal! There were thousands of babies just like that born everyday. Or were there?
When God decided to create a corner, a turning point in history, he didn’t use the rich and famous and powerful. Most of the time God chooses to use ordinary people: righteous people, those who try to do what is right. People like Joseph and Mary are the kind that God chooses to change history!
There is one more insightful thing that “Eve” in C. S. Lewis’ story said: she didn’t know this baby’s name so she called him “Reason.” What a strange name for a little baby! It would be like calling him “wisdom” or “intelligence.” But this is not the only time that this baby was called by such an unusual name. In the gospel of John, we read that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14). The Apostle John called Jesus the “Word,” using the Greek word logos, which means word, reason or wisdom. John 1:1 tells us that “In the Beginning was the Word [the logos] and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” “Logos” was the heavenly name for the baby we call Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.
Jesus was God in human flesh, or as the Lady of Venus put it, he was God’s reason taking human form and living among us, and that changed everything everywhere forever—even on Venus. At Christmas, God became a human, history turned a corner, and times do not go backward.
So, as we change calendars next week, let’s reflect on the meaning of the date: 2026 AD, the number of years since God’s Word ”became flesh and lived among us!” But here is a related question you should ask yourself: Are you BC or AD? Has your life turned that corner from Before Christ, to Belonging to the Lord? That is the most important question in your whole life. It is the most important question in the whole universe!
Greg Giles is a published author, who, along with his wife Jean, has embraced the call to serve and teach around the globe. Their life together has included missionary work in Liberia, Bangladesh, teaching in China, and raising a family in Bemidji, Minnesota. Between global travels and local commitments, including serving as superintendent of Corn Bible Academy and their current part-time roles at Corn Heritage Village, the Gileses have found “home” in many places; yet, they now happily reside in retirement in Cordell. Please visit his website at reflections-on-wisdom.com.