(*My father wrote this rather intriguing piece in 1963 as a reflection on becoming a Canadian citizen. It speaks to today's political and sociological situation. I included it as an appendix to the biography I wrote on my father,)
Incarnation, Immigration, and Integration
Being born of Mary, God’s Son became
a real human being, a true member of the human race, a son of Adam taking his
place in the lineage and in the history of Adam’s descendants.
Mankind’s history is a terribly
troubled history. It is a history of sin, unbelief, idolatry, lying, hatred,
and murder. It is an awful thing to be a man and to belong to the human race—not
only because we suffer under the unrighteousness and hatred of mankind, but
also, and primarily, because, as human beings, we are accountable for the sin
of the whole human race. Mankind’s history is our history and our past.
We tend to consider ourselves apart
from the generations who lived and worked and sinned before us. “What do we
have to do with their history?” we ask. But think of Daniel: He had read in Prophecy
of Jeremiah that seventy years were to pass before the end of the desolations
of Jerusalem. These years had passed and Daniel beseeched God to fulfill his
promise by bringing his people back to Canaan and Jerusalem. But Daniel began
his prayer with a stirring confession of sins. “…we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and
rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We
have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name
to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the
land” (Dan. 9:5,6).
How
could Daniel pray and confess his sins in this way? He was still young when he,
as a prisoner, was brought to Babylon. You remember that he was still a boy
when he was chosen to be educated for the king’s service, and how he proved to
be faithful to God’s commandments. Nonetheless, after having finished his
prayer he said, “I was confessing my sin
and the sin of my people (Dan. 9:10).
He
confessed the sins of the fathers to be his sins and those of his people. He
acknowledged that their past was his past, that their history was his history.
He took the whole history of Israel into consideration. The LORD had given
wonderful gifts, especially the gift of his prophets whom God had sent to speak
his Word. But Israel had repeatedly refused to give heed to their preaching.
That was what led Daniel to confess, “We
have sinned—I and my fathers. O God, forgive us!”
As
a human being, a member of the human race, I am involved with and a part of its
history. We are confronted with its past and the LORD says, “It is also your history.”
What
shall we think of, and what shall be our attitude towards the past of Canada
and the history of the Canadian nation? We, or our parents, immigrated to
Canada. By immigrating to Canada and choosing to live here we made a decision
about our future and the future of our children and grandchildren. But it did
not only affect our future. By immigrating to Canada we also brought about a
change to our past and to the past of our descendants. By leaving “the old
country” as emigrants we were broken off its tree and by immigrating to Canada
we were engrafted into the Canadian tree. We are incorporated in and integrated
with the whole of the Canadian nation. Its past has become our past, its
history our history. At school our children are taught Canadian history as the
history of the nation to which they now belong. This is a fact, one we must
wholeheartedly accept. God does not consider us apart from the Canadian people.
We are responsible for their past, their history. God holds us accountable for
it. We are liable for the sins, the trespasses, and the unrighteous deeds done
in the history of this our country and of this our people.
This
is a terrible responsibility, one which we, ourselves, cannot bear. There is no
acceptable excuse that we and the whole Canadian nation could give to render us
innocent before God. And so it is pure gospel that the Son of God took upon himself
the very nature of man from the flesh and blood of the woman Mary. He truly was
incorporated into the human race. He did so by his own free will. In doing this
he took upon himself all the sins and trespasses and misery of the whole human
race, making himself liable also for the history and the past of the Canadian
nation.
That
historical fact gives us the courage and boldness to accept the Canadian nation
with all its history and past, and to accept responsibility for it.
The
Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. His
was a holy conception and his a holy birth. From the first moment of his
existence as a member of the human race Mary’s Son was holy and righteous. He
was not a partaker of Adam’s disobedience, nor did he live in the sins of his
ancestors. That is why he could bear their sins and pay for them.
The
Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes, “…on you [will] come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from
the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of
Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary
and the altar” (Matt. 23:35).
Cain
murdered Abel because his brother was righteous and walked with the Lord.
Zechariah was murdered because he was a faithful prophet. The murder of
Zechariah is mentioned in the Chronicles, which then was the last book of the
Old Testament. Much innocent blood was shed from the beginning to the end of
Old Testament times. The scribes and Pharisees were quick to say, “We did not
do it. It does not concern us.”
Jesus
said, “You did it! You murdered all the innocents from Abel to Zechariah.” They
did the same terrible thing. They were about to murder the Innocent One, the
Chief Prophet and Teacher. By killing the Innocent One they agreed with Cain’s
murder and took upon themselves the sins and transgressions of their ancestors.
How
shall we now think about Canada’s history and its past? With indifference? As
an outsider? We cannot do so. It is our past. With our own lying, and stealing,
and hatred, and murder, we agree with the very same sins of our ancestors, and
we take upon ourselves the unrighteousness of our Canadian ancestors.
But
how can it be, that we should ever accept the history of the Canadian nation as
our history? We can only do so because of the historical fact of Jesus having
been conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He also took
upon himself the unrighteousness of the Canadian nation, but as the holy and Innocent
One, as God’s only-begotten Son.
We
are protected from God’s wrath only by the innocence which Christ, in his
grace, shares with all who are in communion with him. We are acquitted from the
unrighteous deeds which permeate the history of the nation to which we belong,
in which we share, and in which we continue, only by the righteousness of
Christ. And so we can pass judgment on Canada’s history. Not with the
indifference of a stranger. Not with the aloofness of a European. Much less
with the pride of a Calvinist. But, rather, humbly and courageously as people
comforted in Christ.
Because
of his holy conception and birth of Mary, David’s daughter, he is also the true
seed of David, establishing God’s redeeming and saving kingdom also in the
history of the Canadian nation. By his innocence, in which he steadfastly
continued by obediently humbling himself unto death on the cross, we receive
the privilege of serving him as our King, and of proclaiming and manifesting
his blissful kingship in every sphere of life. Thus we have been chosen to
accept Canada’s past also in this respect: that under the royal dominion of
Christ we may continue to exhibit the righteous deeds of our Canadian
ancestors, in the present time and in the time to come.
And
so it is with boldness and courage, with comfort and joy, that we find and take
our place in the course of Canada’s history—as it was in the past, is in the
present, and will be in the future. Our immigration and our integration is
sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God who, being conceived by the
Holy Spirit, became the Son of Mary, Adam’s daughter and David’s descendent.
Jules T. van Popta, December, 1963.
