Forty years ago a dramatic event took place on the time line of human history. Those who were alive and glued to their televisions at the time will forever remember those storied words: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." With those words Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins became instant household names in America and throughout the world. Man had walked on the moon.

Even before the Eagle landed, history was already in the making. As soon as Apollo 11 lifted off from Kennedy Space Center, there was a sense that something huge was happening, something that would change the world forever. Walter Cronkite of CBS watched the impressive launch of the Saturn V rocket with the tiny capsule perched like an arrowhead at the tip and said, "Everything else that has happened in our
time is going to be an asterisk" (excerpted by Reader's Digest from Craig Nelson's Rocket Men, July 2009, p. 153).
There are events in history that change the world—events like World War II or the Reformation. In the Old Testament there is no doubt that the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt was such an event. That event defined Israel.

Then centuries later another event became even greater—the return from exile in Babylon. Jeremiah foretold it. " ‘However, the days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when men will no longer say, "As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt," but they will say, "As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them." For I will restore them to the land I gave their forefathers' " (Jeremiah 16:14,15).

But only one event causes everything else to become an asterisk in the annals of history. Luke recorded it: "While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:6,7). The apostle Paul further described the impact of this event: "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons" (Galatians 4:4,5).