Emmanuel: God with us.
That's what I'm allowing to sink in this Christmas. I think I'm "getting it" a bit more each Christmas that passes.
I don't know of another faith, ideology or religion that makes it this personal as this.
If we really believe the Christmas story, we are believing in a God who not only created us, but a God who engaged us. We're believing that God is not this disconnected deity that looks upon us from afar. He didn't just breathe life into us to then just leave us to figure it out on our own.
For many of us, God with us is a hard one to accept because if God was truly with me, how is it that so much seems to go under His radar? We tend to question God truly being our Emanuel:God with us when we don't see Him intervening the way we think He should be.
If we go back to that scene in the manger, Jesus as a helpless little baby welcomed into the world He created in the most unlikely of places and conditions for a King. Clearly Jesus didn't come as a VIP, he entered our world in the humblest of ways and continued to live His life that way.
His birth didn't obliterate darkness immediately. His family still had to flee when King Herod was seeking to kill him (and he did kill lots of babies in the process!) The Roman Empire still ruled over Israel. Which was another reason why many found it so hard to believe Jesus was the Messiah. In their understanding, the Messiah was going to make everything right right away.
Believe me, I wish God would supernaturally just take evil out and remove it from our planet all together!
Zap. Gone. Done.
Emmanuel chose to rescue us from all this darkness not by removing us from it but by empowering us to overcome it with His light, shinning through us. I know this will make more sense to me one day, I truly believe that.
There will always be that existing conflict of light emerging in the midst of darkness. Of hope growing in the midst of sorrow. Of joy existing in the midst of our realities. Of Jesus in the midst of our fallen world, our trials, our pain, our losses. Emmanuel is God's promise to us in Jesus.
It may look different to each one of us, but however God makes Himself present in our moments will provide us with a greater and more accurate picture of Who He is. And we will begin to see all our pain, all our struggles, all our disappointments with a new perspective.
With purpose and hope. With courage and grace. He will make sense of it all. Maybe not in our timeline, but eventually, in the bigger picture.
It will tell it's own story. It will shape our story. It will have God all over it because we lived and breathed Emmanuel. We allowed ourselves to experience God with us by believing in spite of the perils, fears, doubts and hesitations.
And that understanding of Emmanuel can only spread hope like wildfire to those around us.
" The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor."
Isaiah 61:1-3
This song has been playing a lot in our house this Christmas season.
A) It's one of our favorite Christian bands.
B) Their cover of this ageless song is just plain awesome!