I don’t know how I missed such an important occasion. You may have missed it too. Text-messaging is 20 years old. According to an Eric Limer report in
gizmodo.com, on December 3rd 1992, a 22-year-old Canadian test engineer sat
down and typed out a very simple message, "Merry Christmas." It flew
over the Vodafone network to the phone of one Richard Jarvis, and since then,
we just haven't been able to stop texting.
Texting is all the deal these days.
In fact, numerous people send more text messages than actually make phone
calls. I discovered a few years ago that
if I called one of my kids, I’d usually have to leave a voice mail. If I texted them, they texted me right
back. It’s a big deal all right, but it
didn’t start that way. In the very
beginning, texts were just a way to send network notifications, namely to let
you know you had a voice-mail. In 1993,
Nokia introduced GSM handsets capable of person-to-person texting. Even then, it still didn’t take off. In 1995, people were only sending an average
of 4 text messages a month.
But what a difference a few years make.
In 2010, the world sent over 6.1
trillion messages, or roughly 193,000 per second. And
that's just good old-fashioned SMS, not the dozens upon dozens of services it's
inspired. Texting has even spawned its
own vocabulary: lol, bff, tnx, and though there are a jillion more, a dinosaur
like me is pretty clueless as to any ones but these. I suspect it’s not far from accurate to state
that texting is right near the top of the way people communicate with one
another anymore.
It’s ironic that that texting’s birthday comes in the same month that
we celebrate the birth of Jesus. God had
been sending the world His messages through prophets and through those who
wrote down the words and ideas God had inspired in their hearts. But on that day in Bethlehem, God sent His
Son. God came in person. No text.
No prophet announcement. No voice
out of a cloud. God sent His Son—"born of
a woman, born under the law to redeem those that are under the law that we
might receive the full rights of sons" (Gal. 4:4). Could a message be any more intimate or
personal or powerful? In effect, God was
saying, “I’m not sending you a word or a prophet or a text; I’m coming down
myself.” Isaiah said it would happen and
Matthew confirmed it: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a
son, and they will call him Immanuel—which means ‘God with us.’”
So Happy Birthday, Texting, and Happy Birthday, Jesus. Texting has changed a lot of things in its 20
years. But it has a long way to go to
catch up to the kind of changes Jesus has made in millions of lives, in
numerous cultures, and in history itself.
If you missed texting’s birthday, no big deal. But please, please, please, don’t miss Jesus’
birthday. That is a big deal. Christmas got the ball rolling toward the cross and the resurrection
and the securing of the life that is really life for all who believe.
You know, I'm so grateful I think I’ll send a text message to God: Tku 4 sending ur
son. Hppy bday, JC :)
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