God with us.
“Sometimes I make bad choices because sometimes I forget that Jesus loves me.” - Zane Veer Height
I was talking with my four year old son one day about his behavior as he was struggled to listen to and obey instructions from my wife and I. As I reprimanded him for not cleaning up his toys like he had been told, he responded with: “Sorry Dad. I’ll stop acting bad.”
“Zane, you’re not acting bad,” I replied, “Sometimes you do make bad choices but right now you just aren’t listening to Mom and Dad.”
Zane replied, “Okay, I’m sorry. Sometimes I make bad choices because sometimes I forget that Jesus loves me.”
Can you relate to that? Because I sure can.
That gap between being the loved child of God that we are and who we see ourselves to be has created deep brokenness and heartbreak in our world. When we forget who we are in Christ, it becomes much simpler to make the wrong choices. But when we remember that God is with us and for us, everything can change.
When we are separated from Jesus and His love, cascading forms of brokenness wash over us and our corner of Creation. In his book A Why to Live For, Rev. Dave Rodriguez breaks down what he calls the 6 Broken Places, which serve as metaphorical buckets that hold all of the evil, ugliness, and brokenness in God’s Creation. These 6 Broken Places are: Separation (from God), Isolation, Hate, Decay, Pain, and Injustice. Each of these areas encapsulate different forms of brokenness in our world and the foundational Broken Place from which the other 5 stem out of is - Separation from God. (Learn more about how we are each created to engage in the mending of one of these Broken Places in his book.)
Being separated from God is the original schism from which everything else has and does fall apart. And the central narrative we read about in the Bible is of a God going to universe-bending lengths to redeem and mend that separation.
That is the great Good News of Christmas - that our God did not abandon humanity when we forgot our identity as loved children of God. Rather, the Creator of the universe literally got on our level in the divine-person of Jesus Christ and came to heal all brokenness, redeem our identities, and defeat the powers of sin and death. And that same God who did not abandon humanity then is the same God who does not abandon us today.
Said differently, we do not simply have a God who is for us. Our God is both for us and with us!
Celebrating the birth of Jesus every year is a reminder that our God was, is, and will always be with us. That is the unique claim of Christianity: our God came and lived amongst us and now also resides within those who follow Jesus. The Bible literally gives us a name for this attribute of Jesus: Emmanuel, God with us.
God is with you today - whatever today looks like for you. In the great, bad, exciting, depressing, joyful, and stressful moments of life, God is with you. You do not journey alone as a Christian. Christmas reminds us that God’s great love for us moved God towards us and that God’s pursuit of each of us never stops.
Today, and every day, you have the opportunity to journey through life with Jesus.
This Christmas may you remember that our God loves you deeply. May you remember that this love is calling you to become fully transformed into a Christlike child of God. And may you remember that this transformation happens because our God is with us.
Jesus is Emmanuel.
Jesus is God with us.
Merry Christmas friends.
