February 2018
Have you been writing 2017 and then correcting it to 2018
for the last few weeks? Eventually our brains accept that the counter has moved
on one and we know for sure that we are in 2018. But what are we counting? 2018 since what? Well, of course, our calendar was designed to
count the years since Jesus was born.
Before that, various systems were in use counting the years of a
particular emperor or king until someone suggested that we should count from
Christ’s birth. A mistake of four or so
years was made in the original calculation, and the idea took a few centuries
to catch on, but now the whole world is able to work to this system (even if
there are some local alternatives).
Ancient history is ‘Before Christ’ and more recent things are ‘Anno
Domini’ (‘In the Year of the Lord’).
Of late, there has been an increasing reluctance to tie
everything to Jesus in this way. Is his
birth the one event in history to measure all other dates against? Is this insensitive to those who are not
Christian believers? But what other
event in history would be acceptable as the world-wide marker of Year 1? (Perhaps when we leave the EU we should
restart our calendar and count years ‘Post Brexit’ but I doubt that the idea
will be welcomed everywhere.)
And so, increasingly, the labels BC and AD are replaced with
BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) as if we know what event our
dates are based on but we don’t want to talk about it publicly. As others have pointed out it’s ironic that CE
could just as easily stand for ‘Christ’s Empire’. For those with eyes to see, all those BCE and
CE labels in museums and text books continue to speak about the
world-shattering arrival of God’s Son as the all-conquering and just King over
a new Empire.
The reign of this Royal Son “will endure as long as the sun, as long as the
moon, through all generations” (Psalm 72).
Perhaps when we reach the year 20018 or 200018 no-one will care what
letters we add because it will have become clear that no other ruler’s birth
will ever be a candidate for the year from which to count all years.
Happy 2018!
Sincerely
Graham Burrows
