I haven’t always been a Christian. I know what it is like to feel alone and feel
like there is no God, as if I were in a deep, dark pit with no way out and no
one there to hear. I resonate with David in Psalm 40 when he said
that God “lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my
feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
As a Pastor, people have often asked me the question: “where
is God?” in reference to their own slimy pit experience. What I have learned since in my own dark
night of the soul is that God was there all the time. So, in response to that question of where God
is, I can say with both confidence and compassion that he is right here,
weeping with you; he is right here, walking alongside you; he is right here,
sitting beside you; right here with you if you will have the eyes of faith to
see. I know God is here because it is
Christmas; God came down and moved into the neighborhood with us in the person
of Jesus, Emmanuel, which means God with us.
It was not just Mary that was pregnant with Jesus, but
history itself was pregnant because the time had fully come for the kingdom of
God to break into this world through a child who would save the people from
sin, through an infant, Emmanuel, God with us.
What I believe we need to know more than anything is that God
is with us! God is so great that he is
not somehow trapped in heaven; he can come down; he wants to come down; he did
come down, literally becoming one of us – he is Emmanuel, God with us.
God did not come to this earth with
a big advertising campaign letting us know of the grand opening, or with a huge
and expensive party to draw attention. Neither
did God come through a rich and powerful family. Instead, in order to fully relate to us, to
genuinely be with us, he came in through a lowly stable. There are many theologians and scholars who
are able to articulate this truth for all kinds of curious intellects of how
this could take place, that God became man.
Yet, sometimes it simply takes a personal story, a testimony so to
speak, to bring clarity. Bono is the
lead singer for the pop/rock band U2. He
tells of a time when he returned to his native Dublin, Ireland for Christmas
and, on a whim, decided to sit in a church service. At some point in the worship, he came upon
the great realization, with tears streaming down his face, of what it is all
about; he says,
“The idea that God, if there is a
force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself
is amazing enough. That it would seek to
explain itself by becoming a child born in poverty, in manure and straw, a
child, I just thought, ‘wow!’ I saw the
genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this….
Love needs to find a form, intimacy needs to be whispered…. Love has to become
an action or something concrete. It
would have to happen. There must be an
incarnation. Love must be made flesh and
dwell among us.”
God has descended to our messy,
mixed up, broken world, standing with us in our suffering and shame, plunging
head long into our pain and hurt and loneliness. Paul Louis Metzger has wisely pointed out
that a God who is simply nice and decent would take pity and send some help,
maybe an angel or a prophet - at least some sage advice for us. And, we would respect that, maybe even be
satisfied with it. But the good news is
that God went far beyond nice and decent.
On this very day God became a naked baby. He was a fetus, then an unwanted pregnancy,
then a slimy, screaming baby – he grew up and ended up a criminal, stripped
naked, tortured by those who knew not who he was, and condemned to die. There is nothing nice and decent about
that! It was done for us.
Perhaps you are not feeling close to
God this holiday season, but rather far from God. Perhaps this holiday season brings you more
sorrow than joy. Perhaps the weight of a
situation that seems beyond your control has caused you immeasurable worry and
concern. Maybe you are wondering where
he is. I will tell you: he is right here. And he is waiting for you to respond to his
coming, his Advent, his incarnation.
Throughout the New Testament Gospels Jesus is presented as God with
us. He was with the disciples when the
storm struck and threatened their lives, and he rebuked the wind and the waves
and saved them; Jesus was with his people as they were rejected by others for
preaching that the kingdom of God had broken into this world through the
Emmanuel. Jesus is not an idea, not a myth,
not a historical figure to be debated, not a nice guy with some pithy wisdom;
he is Emmanuel, God with us! And he is
with us to the point that whatever happens to us, happens to him.
Since he is here, since Jesus is
Emmanuel, now is the time to recognize him for who he is. God with us means that God is here! Since he is present with us, we can and must
respond to his presence by admitting that we have made a mess of things through
living by the illusion that we are in control of our lives and living as if he weren’t
here at all. But God is here, and he is looking
for us all to center our lives on the person of Jesus, and to give up going our
own way and instead pursue knowing God in Christ.
Maybe you are a person who has gone
to church all your life, and like me years ago, are familiar with the baby
Jesus and Advent wreaths and Christmas carols and worship services. Yet, you have not come to the point in your
life where you seriously and deliberately responded to the presence of God in
Jesus and devoted your life to him so that everything centers on him and not
you. One of the realities of Christmas
is that God is calling us all to feel the impact of the baby Jesus, Emmanuel,
God with us, and to let that joy fill our souls to overflowing. The Christmas story is a story of
invitation. We are invited into the
story of Jesus. Come and see the angels
singing glory to God; come and see the shepherds praising God for what they
have seen and heard; come and see Mary and Joseph rejoicing in the birth of
Jesus; come and bend down and look into the smelly, lowly manger, and you will
see God with us. You are invited into a
new life.