When Your Best is Not Enough
One
The Best of the Jews
Why did God wait so long after the fall of Adam and Eve to send the Savior? After the fall of Adam and Eve, twenty generations go by with humanity hell bent on self-destruction marked by pride, hatred, and bloodshed resulting in a catastrophic flood and the division of the world into isolated nations that can’t even talk to one another. Then God calls Abraham, who had a son, Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah have Jacob. Jacob then had twelve sons through four different women. Not a good idea. Ten of those sons conspire to kill the youngest, Joseph, which ends with Joseph in Egypt. Genesis ends with all Twelve Tribes enslaved in Egypt for four hundred years. But we are all enslaved to self-destructive tendencies, and we won’t admit it.
Through Moses, God set Israel free. Joshua takes them into the Promised Land, and through the Book of Judges, they win and build the Promised Land. In 1000 BC God promises to give David an Everlasting Kingdom. But Solomon, his son, the most intelligent man who ever lived, was addicted to Power, Greed, and Lust: seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. And Solomon burned his own sons to the demon Molech. And so, begins the self-destruction of Israel.
His son Rehoboam causes a civil war in Israel. A house divided cannot stand. In 722 BC, the ten northern tribes of Israel were conquered by the Assyrians and lost forever and the place where they lived became known as Samaria. In 586 BC the two southern tribes conquered and exiled by the Babylonians (modern day Iraq). The Jewish temple is destroyed, the Ark of the Covenant is lost forever, and the Kingdom of Israel ends.
Two
Seventy years later (515 BC) the remaining two tribes of Jews returned from Exile and they rebuilt the Temple
In 167 BC, a Syrian mad-man, Atiochus Epiphanes conquered Israel and outlawed the Jewish religion. In 164 BC, the Jewish family of the Maccabees lead a guerilla war to fight for their religious freedom and they defeat the Syrians and start the Hasmonean Dynasty. They ruled what is left of Israel. But they eventually turn on one another through a lust for power by plotting, intrigues, murder and assassinations.
Finally in, 67 BC, the death of the last Queen of the Hasmoneans, Alexandra Salome, plunged Judea into a civil war between her two sons, Hyrcanus and Aris-tobulus vying for power.
Things were so out of control in Jerusalem that Rome intervened in 63 BC. The Roman General Pompey entered Jerusalem and the Temple and the Holy of Holies and what did he find? NOTHING! It was empty, just like they were empty!
That is how the Old Testament ends, not with the Chosen People saving themselves and building a glorious kingdom, but with the Jews killing each other in a bloody civil war. Now the Kingdom is lost, the Ark of the Covenant is lost, and the Temple is Empty. They’ve ruined it all. They’ve hit rock bottom
Three
Maybe the Gentiles fared better?
Rome stood as the pinnacle of human achievement, the most civilized and virtuous of the Gentile kingdoms. Yet beneath its gleaming marble and disciplined legions, chaos festered. Rome was at war, always at war. From without, it battled the Greeks, Parthians, and Carthage. From within, its own leaders tore it apart, consumed by relentless ambition. The Republic, once a beacon of law and order, became a stage for endless civil wars waged by generals hungry for power.
Pompey, fresh from his conquest of Jerusalem, turned his armies on Julius Caesar, his former ally. The two clashed in a brutal struggle, leaving Rome fractured. Victory was Caesar’s, but his triumph was short-lived. On the Ides of March, 44 BC, the blade of betrayal struck him down. His death unleashed another storm of ambition, as Mark Antony, Caesar’s trusted general, and Octavian, his named heir, plunged the Republic into yet another bloody war. For over a decade, Rome bled as Antony and Octavian tore through its armies, each seeking total domination. Mark Antony’s love for Cleopatra entangled him in Egypt’s intrigue. Trapped and defeated, Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide, leaving Octavian the last man standing. In 30 BC, he took the name Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
But Augustus did not bring peace. The world was not healed, it was simply too tired to keep fighting. Exhaustion, not salvation, silenced the swords. Beneath this fragile calm lay a world rotted by lust for power, wealth, and pleasure. Humanity, Jew and Gentile alike, had plunged into a pit of intrigue, deceit, seduction, assassination, adultery, and greed. It was as if all of creation had hit rock bottom, unable to lift itself from its addiction to sin and self-destruction.
Four
Why Christ Waited So Long to Come
One of the crucial questions to ask ourselves during Advent is: why did Christ, our Savior, wait so long to come? Why didn’t God become man right after Adam and Eve sinned? Why did He leave the human race to flounder and flail in its sin for so many generations? The main answer is found in Jesus’ words, that those who are well have no need of a physician, and that He came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Why does God wait so long to come? Because the world needed to learn by experience that it was powerless to save itself. Only then would we be open and ready for the Savior of the world. Unless the human race realized it needed help, it wouldn’t accept that help when it came. The human race had to be given enough time to realize that its best was not enough, that even when it reached its most impressive levels of virtue, it couldn’t sustain it.
We needed God’s help. We needed salvation. That’s the crucial lesson of world history
Five
Do you know that your best is not enough?
So, do you know that your best is not enough? That’s part of the question we should be asking ourselves during advent. Because Christ is coming, but He’s not coming for the righteous, He’s coming for sinners. He’s coming to the people who have tried their best to be generous, and forgiving, and pure, and self-disciplined, and fair, and their best has failed.
If that’s you, and only if that’s you, then Advent is a time of great hope. Because only those whose best has failed are ready to be saved. It is to them that the God in the Manger is coming.