Watchmaker/Watchkeeper

When we take the time to look around us, it’s pretty clear that there is a God.

And that seems to be the conclusion reached by nearly every civilization known to us.

There is a being or a force out there that orders and controls the universe.

Whether we look outward into the vastness of space.

Or inward into the intricacies and complexities of our earthly surroundings and ourselves.

The more we learn about science and how things work,

The clearer it becomes that all this had to be created by some initial mover.

One analogy popularized in the early 19^th Century was that of the watchmaker.

If you look at a watch, you realize that there had to be a watchmaker.

You know it couldn’t have just come into being by itself.

It had to have an intelligent designer.

If you look at nature you realize the same thing.

It too had to have an intelligent designer and creator.

A popular theology during that Age of Enlightenment was Deism.

Some of America’s founding fathers, notably Thomas Jefferson, had Deist leanings.

Deists believed that there was a God who created everything.

The Great Clockmaker who set everything into motion.

But who then had no further involvement with that creation.

He left it to operate on its own.

We might sometimes tend to feel that way ourselves.

Is God really listening to our prayers?

Does God really care what we do?

Why would God listen to us?

And even if he did, would he ever intervene?

Why would he trouble himself with our little personal problems?

As Christians we know that we shouldn’t muddle for long in that kind of doubt and despair.

Of course God gets involved in our little lives.

What greater show of involvement could a creator give,

Than to become physically part of his creation?

Just as God did when he came to us on that Christmas day 2000 years ago.

We’re now in the midst of Advent, our preparation to celebrate the anniversary of that coming.

And today we celebrate one of the preparations that God Himself made for His arrival.

He intervened; He got involved in the personal life of Mary.

At the instant she was conceived in the womb of her mother, Anne.

He exempted Mary from the taint of original sin.

That hereditary defect that all the rest of us bear from the instant we come into existence.

Clearly, God does get directly involved and intervene in our human lives.

Mary’s Immaculate Conception and God’s own Incarnation at Christmas are just two examples.

And he continues today to interact with us in our lives, and to keep watch over us.

We Christians can take comfort in knowing, our God is not only the Great Watchmaker.

He is also the Great Watchkeeper.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Lk 1:26-38           Read this Scripture @usccb.org