Benchmarks

Visitors to a garden park in my daughter’s hometown can pause on benches like this, many telling in whose memory they are donated. When I saw them, the term “benchmark” came to mind. But when I checked its meaning in the dictionary, I wondered if I might be wrong.  One definition started out:
“A mark on a permanent object indicating elevation and serving as a reference in topographical surveys and tidal observations.”
In other words, it’s a geographic indicator, like lowest or highest point in the continental U.S.
Then another dictionary offered this secondary meaning:
“Anything that is taken as, or serves as, a point of reference.”

What a great description of Christmas, the birth of Jesus! He is our point of reference. His coming in the unlikely package of a baby is the point of which history turned from despair to hope.  From the “lowly” miracle babe in a manger, He grew up to be the crucified, risen, and ascended Savior, who someday will come again.

The apostle Paul thought much about such benchmarks in his own life. In 1 Corinthians 15 he wrote much about the “high point” of faith, of Christ’s resurrection and the hope of eternity with Him.  At the same time, Paul didn’t hide the “low” point of his religious practices.

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.(1 Corinthians 15:9-10).

John Newton, slave-trader-turned-minister, must have thought much about this verse. Similar words were engraved on the gravestone of the “Amazing Grace” author, who died in 1807:

John Newton, Clerk

Once an Infidel and Libertine,

A Servant of Slaves in Africa,

Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour

JESUS CHRIST
Preserved, restored, pardoned,

And appointed to preach the Faith

He had long labored to destroy

Nobody will deny that the Christmas season has become a frenzy of shopping, entertaining, and programs. When we take that all away, it comes back to this benchmark: that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  That point of reference strips the holiday season to this one, non-negotiable response:

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. (2 Corinthians 9:15)