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Christianity, Christmas, God the Son, God's Presence, Hope, Immanuel, Jesus Christ, Lonely, Salvation, The Creator
Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, God with us. – Matthew 1:23
There’s a modern Christmas song that goes like this:
On a starlit hillside, shepherds watched their sheep
Slowly, David’s city drifted off to sleep
But to this little town of no great renown
The Lord had a promise to keep
Prophets had foretold it, a mighty King would come
Long awaited Ruler, God’s Anointed One
But the Sovereign of all looked helpless and small
As God gave the world His own Son
And who would have dreamed or ever foreseen
That we could hold God in our hands?
The Giver of Life is born in the night
Revealing God’s glorious plan…
To save the world
Wondrous gift of heaven: the Father sends the Son
Planned from time eternal, moved by holy love
He will carry our curse and death He’ll reverse
So we can be daughters and sons
(Who Would Have Dreamed – written by Jason Hansen & Bob Kauflin)
It’s beyond anything we can comprehend, why God went to all the trouble of creating a world, when He knew we humans would just mess things up.
Like, really mess things up.
Can you imagine being Eve and realizing that one small and seemingly insignificant decision changed the world forever? Truly, Paradise was lost – and one of her sons killed her other son. Because of her.
Curt Thompson, MD, is a psychiatrist, speaker and the author of several books including, Anatomy of the Soul and The Soul of Shame.
He says, “…in order for me to be liberated from the shame I carry, I need someone to be able to say to me, ‘…You were wrong to have done this.’ I need to hear that my behavior was really as bad as I think, if not worse, while simultaneously sensing that the person I am confessing to is not leaving.”
In Genesis 3, we read the account of the Fall – the day when Adam and Eve violated God’s law.
God created a beautiful garden for the first couple to live in, to work in and enjoy. We don’t know how long the bliss lasted, before the Deceiver came.
We do know, God only made one tree off-limits. With all the other trees and vines and plants, Adam and Eve’s needs and desires for sustenance were fully met.
But God put that one forbidden tree in the middle of the garden – not in a back corner hidden from view.
The question has been asked:
Why did God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil, if it would be used for great destruction?
We don’t know the answer. What we do know is: God was with us in Paradise – before and after the Fall.
The point is, not that we sinned, but that God didn’t abandon us in our sin.
After the deed was done, and the guilty pair covered themselves with fig leaves and hid, God not only knew about it, He went to the garden seeking them out. To draw them out of hiding.
“Where are you?” God asked.
After the confrontation that followed, the three Persons of God held a meeting.
Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever — therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden… – Genesis 3:22-24
God didn’t leave us or allow us to live forever in the mess we made by giving us access to the other well-known tree: the Tree of Life.
God already had a plan. Thousands of years later God would come down and enter into the mess, becoming like us in our humanity, while being nothing like us in His divinity.
That’s when a baby was born in Bethlehem.
It’s beyond anything we can comprehend, how God wrapped Himself in flesh, leaving His Heavenly home and limiting Himself to time and matter and space.
All God, all Man, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
Other religions have gods and saints that are perfect, unflawed, untouched by humanity’s mess. But Christianity is the only religion whose God made Himself lower than the angels, to be here with us.
Another Christmas song puts it like this:
It’s still a mystery to me
That the hands of God could be so small
How tiny fingers reaching in the night
Were the very hands that measured the sky
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven’s love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah, son of God, servant King
Here with us, You’re here with us
It’s still a mystery to me
How His infant eyes have seen the dawn of time
How His ears have heard an angel’s symphony
But still Mary had to rock her Savior to sleep
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven’s love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah, son of God, servant King
Here with us, You’re here with us
You’re here with us
Jesus, the Christ, born in Bethlehem
A baby born to save, to save the souls of man
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven’s love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah, son of God, servant King
Here with us
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Heaven’s love reaching down to save the world
Hallelujah, hallelujah, son of God, servant King
Here with us, You’re here with us
You’re here with us
(Here With Us – written by Ben Glover, Jason Ingram & Joy Yetton)
God was with us at Creation.
God was with us in the Garden.
God was with us in our shame.
God was with us in our Redemption, on the cross, in the Resurrection, and back on earth again.
And God is with us in our everyday life.
It is only those who refuse and reject His presence in the here and now, who will forfeit His presence in eternity.
But for those who believe, God is here. With us.
Wow.
Oh. And Merry Christmas!
Links to songs:
Who Would Have Dreamed
Here With Us
debbiecroft 