Fragile and Frail

I enjoy reading these ‘What if’ books that look at historical events and speculate on what might have happened had just one thing happened differently. One of the classic ‘what if’ scenarios is what would have happened had the assassination plot against Hitler been successful. How would things have changed? What are the various possible outcomes? And so on.

This is called ‘counterfactual history’ and has been defined as ‘the idea of conjecturing on what did not happen, or what might have happened, in order to understand what did happen’. Well, that’s what they say… or at least what some people say. Many historians regard it as no more than entertainment, and consider that its speculative approach adds little or nothing to real historical research.

So, take your pick!

But I still find it interesting and it helps me to think about how so often it is seemingly small things that make such a huge difference.

Think about the Birth of Jesus. I realise that behind what I am about to say lie enormous theological issues concerning the plan providence and protection of God, and issues of divine sovereignty and human free will and so forth.

But I have often found myself asking ‘what if’, when I hear or read the Nativity accounts in the Gospels. What if Mary had resisted and refused? What if Joseph had not been willing to take Mary as his wife? What if Herod had been ‘successful’ in his murderous intent and the infant Jesus had been killed?

 

That in turn has led me to go on and ponder still more ‘What if’ scenarios. I’ll leave it for you to think through what these might be!

As I say, I know we are dealing here with very big underlying theological issues. My mind goes there too and often wrestles with them.

However, that is not my point today. My observation is simply this; that it was not only the little baby Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made Flesh, who was fragile and frail. The whole business of the Incarnation seems fragile and frail.

But that does seem to be God’s way. Fragility and frailty are evidenced in both the Crib and the Cross.

Yes, I am conscious too of the mighty works of God who reveals his power.

But we also need to ponder this frailty and fragility and reflect upon it and what it reveals to us about our God and his ways, and what it says to us about our own situation.

Why do we constantly pursue strength and security, regarding them as undeniably desirable, and regard fragility and frailty as necessarily negative things?

Answers on a postcard please to… ?!?