The World is Flat Today
The last ten years has brought increasing attention to globalization. A chorus of gurus, pundits, scholars and journalists sing Thomas Friedman’s refrain to globalization that “The World is Flat.” Trade, information, education, capital, and people flow around an increasingly interconnected world giving rise to new economies, business models, and other new realities. Diverse cultures from Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East sometimes clash, and often blend. New influences emerge to shape our world. Globalization is viewed as both opportunity and threat. It’s in the front of minds as we make business decisions and it’s always on in the background as our context of wars and staggering geopolitical issues.
As I’ve reflected on this the past few days, I realized that while we breathlessly talk about this new world and the new economy, it really isn’t new at all, unless you consider the role that Christmas plays.
The World was Flat Then
The Roman Empire, albeit by brute force, brought about a globalization process, a flattening of the world over two millennia ago. The modern version, certainly, has some unique characteristics. But consider how Rome “flattened” the ancient world through its political and military might bringing about Pax Romana. This simultaneously permitted the implementation of its technology and global labor force (slaves?) to build an amazing road system that interconnected this world. Add to this Roman currency, political structures, and economic might. The result was the interconnection of diverse cultures, economies, people and knowledge. The marketplace was filled with many languages and products flowed in from around the world. Diverse philosophies and religions mixed in the cities. Religious and political factions vied for power and influence. Massive and excessive sporting events captured public attention.
And what about Christmas today?
It’s a global commercial circus highlighted with reporting on the latest hot products and consumer spending figures. The season’s intensity is heightened by NFL playoff struggles, BCS bickering, and NBA brawls. All this is interspersed with television features on fights over trees in airports, nativity scenes absent the baby, outrage over “Christian” video games that are considered by some to be excessively violent and excessively religious (most gamers would say excessively lame), and the mixed responses to Wal-Mart bringing “Merry Christmas” back to its stores.
And Christmas then?
Well, Rome wasn’t filled with debates about trees, mangers, and politically correct greetings. There was no commercial holiday season. There wasn’t even a religious Christmas season. Rome had no idea that anything was happening. There was no anticipation at all except by a very few who, full of faith, awaited not a holiday, but the fulfillment of promises made by God. In the midst of their version of globalization, their hearts were tuned to look for God’s next move, His divine entrance into human history.
God’s advent wasn’t a strategically branded and managed campaign, unlike today’s Christmas movies, books, “Christian” video games and other fare, unless you call a wild haired and wild-eyed guy coming out of the wilderness, offending and condemning those who came to hear his rants a good PR campaign. This front man, John, wasn’t concerned about the preparation of a market but the preparation of the heart. And our global strategy and ad agencies wouldn’t have scripted it this way…a teen age mother with an out-of-wedlock baby, stranded out of town, giving birth in the equivalent of the service area or garage of a motel, and the only folks who come to the “delivery room” to greet the child are some minimum wage types who’d been tending sheep.
And it also wasn’t about the baby. We make a big fuss over the baby. It’s cute. It’s heart warming. It’s marketable. But it wasn’t about the baby, but the advent. It was about the quiet and humble entrance of God into human history to usher in His Kingdom and to offer Himself as the sacrifice that would deliver mankind from its bondage.
This year I want to remember and reflect on the long promised and now fulfilled entrance of God into history, the fact that He is here. I want my heart to be prepared, full of faith, to receive what He is doing and to anticipate what He will do each day. And I want to appreciate anew that the most important things that occur in this flat world are probably happening through unlikely people in unlikely places completely without the attention and recognition of the world around them. History is not the same since He quietly entered. And neither is my life.
