Coincidence?
At age seven, I stood with Grandpa on the basement steps of his farm house. The basement was our “safe place.” In the distance, torpedoing across panoramic Colorado plains, barreled a tornado toward us. Grandpa: “God, please redirect it.” The tornado changed directions. Coincidence?
In 1981, I helped plant a church in rural SC and started an adoption agency. Both flourished.
Later, as I recalled God’s blessings there, I remembered Effie Merritt. In 1950, she began praying for a Bible preaching, gospel believing church out in her “neck of the woods.” In 1951, I was born in distant Colorado. For college, I headed to California. Wrong direction! Think of what God did through Effie’s 30 years of prayer that brought us to SC! Coincidences?
Myrna Loy’s childhood home was our first Helena home. When our youngest finished high school, we looked for a place where we could SEE Montana. A fixer-upper above Lake Helena beckoned. Needing God’s direction – we’d be reassuming a mortgage – we prayed. One night, I listed our home on Craig’s List. The next morning, I got a call. That afternoon, the caller made an offer. We accepted. Coincidence?
“When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t” (Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, 1881-1944).
“Coincidence” and “Accident” (www.etymonline.com)
“Coincidence” comes from Latin – “coincidere,” literally, “to fall upon together” – “com” = “together” + “in” = “upon” + “cadere” = “to fall.” “Coincidence is a concurrence of events with no apparent connection; something that is incidental or accidental.”
Still, “in-cident” and “ac-cident” vary greatly. “‘Incidents’ are things that happen, events. ‘Accidents’ are ‘mishaps, undesirable events. The Latin phrase: ‘si quid cui ‘accidat,’ – ‘if anything should happen to one’ was a euphemism for ‘to die.’” The disparity between incident and accident is the difference between being “seen” and being “viewed” – as at our funeral! “‘Accident–prone’ is from 1926. ‘Unplanned child,’ is attested by 1932.”
“Accident” – “Unplanned Child”
At Christmas, we remember the ostensibly “unplanned child” carried by a young teenage girl still claiming virginity. How awkward. Her pregnancy, apparently more of an “accident” than an “incident,” scandalized gossiping neighbors.
The recurring undercurrent of this shame lingers decades. In John 8, Jesus’ accusers begin by disputing his claims. When they claim Abraham as their father, Jesus replies (8: 41) “You are doing the works of your own father.”
Offended, they resort to a back-alley insult – literally, “We have not been born because of sexual immorality.” In other words, “You are a son of a ___.”
Then, putting a bow on their self-righteous indignation, they assert: “The only Father we have is God himself.”
John 8:42 “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me…44You belong to your father, the devil.’”
This hard-hitting debate continues until Jesus concludes: 58“’Very truly I tell you (in other words, pay ATTENTION!), before Abraham was born, I am!’ 59At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away.”
I Am – no accident/mere-incident
Jesus declares: Before Abraham was born, I am. “I Am” undergirds “Yahweh,” by far the most beloved name of God in the Old Testament. So, “I Am” shows Jesus is no “accidental or incidental concurrence of events.” By Jesus’ claim, his enemies knew Jesus meant he was God – a death deserving blasphemy!
But, the I Am, Jesus, determines time and space – “slipping away” – literally – “going through their midst, he passed them by.” What?!
Why has the I Am come?
Friend, among the jumble of Pick-Up-Stix pieces evidently thrown helter-skelter in this world, comes the I Am, the One True Piece. Planned from eternity, foretold by ancient prophets, the great I AM has come among us – with laser-focused purpose – not merely incidentally or, certainly not, accidentally.
According to God’s PLAN, our first parents heard God warn the serpent that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head while being bruised on his heel (Genesis 3:15). That ancient promise of Christ crucified prompted our first parents to trust God. He would fulfill his pledge in the midst of the mess.
As a result, the “coincidence” of Mary’s “unplanned pregnancy” is not arbitrary but, literally, what “falls upon together.” “Together” in this broken world? Yes, the I Am “falls together,” embeds himself with apparent mortals – us. Astonishing, for (Colossian 1:17) “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In him, sinners can be reconnected with God and many neighbors!
Celebrating the I Am at Christmas
Jesus came (Lk 19:10) “to seek and to save that which was lost.” “Lost” is not someone who somehow got distracted and merely misplaced where he needs to be. The “lost,” in Greek, as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim well knew, were on the road to complete destruction.
Until the I Am intervened.
In C.S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle,” Queen Lucy, in Narnia but from Earth, speaking about a Narnian stable, declares: “Yes, in our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”
John Chrysostom (birth? – 407), Constantinople’s patriarch asked: “How could he who was rich have become, for our sake, so poor? O immeasurable wealth concealed in poverty! He lies in a manger, yet rocks the whole world. Bound with swaddling bands, he breaks the bonds of sin. Before he could speak, he taught wise men, converting them.”
Friend, in a world of apparent coincidences and accidents, “Mary’s searching was interrupted by an angel who promised that in a matter of nine months she would look not up but down, into the face of the baby in her arms, into the face of God. So, it is with all who wake up to find themselves found by Emmanuel, God with us” (John Neuhaus, 1936-2009).
Matthew 20:28, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” In our often accidental and coincidental world, merry certainly-not-accidental nor merely-coincidental Christmas!
Post publication note: Einstein: “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”
