“God is With Us”
John 1:1-5, 14, 16
Matthew 1:18-23
Colossians 1:15-20
In the days of King Herod, says the writer of the Gospel of Luke, which early readers and keepers of the story understood to mean in the most brutal of times.
In the time of King Herod, says the writer of Matthew, meaning something like the wilderness of exile.
These gospel writers go out of their way to locate the birth of Jesus in a special socio-political context. They want us to know that the Word became flesh among a particular people at a particularly difficult time.
In our time of suffering under a would-be king, in our time government-sanctioned cruelty and crass efforts by the powerful to further divide and control the powerless, the timing of Christ’s coming is worth remembering.
The writer Madeleine L’Engle put it this way:
Christ didn’t wait ’til the world was ready, ’til nations were at peace. Christ came when the heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release. Christ didn’t wait ’til hearts were pure. He came to a people wounded within and without. To a world like ours, he came, and his Light would not go out.
It was no small thing, having the one who had been with God since before the beginning, the one who was there with God when all things were created, the one who holds all things together take on blood and bone and flesh. Indeed, the immediate results showed just how big and risky a thing it was: The child was born to a poor couple, moved into the sketchy neighborhood of humanity, quickly became a target of state violence and, along with his shell-shocked parents, was forced to flee to another country for sanctuary.
The writer of the Gospel of John puts a positive, poetic, even beautiful spin on it all, but from other writers and many students of the Hebrew scriptures, one gets the sense that God had tried virtually everything else to heal the world, that God had already pulled out almost all the stops to show humanity how to build beloved community, that God had demonstrated their unfailing love time and again.
But still the world remained a cruel, hot mess. Still, the nations and peoples raged against one another. Still, humanity trusted money and military might more than love and community. Still, most people lived in fear and trembling, and believed themselves to be alone in the world, maybe even alone against the world.
And so the God who is Love employed the last, best resort of love, which is presence—not only spiritual presence, not just emotional presence, but also embodied, physical presence. And there was nothing subtle about it. The baby, God said, was to be named Emmanuel, which means God with us, which is meant to remind us that God is with us always and no matter what, that God’s love, strength, and grace, God’s hope, peace, love and joy walk beside us and live within us and work for us—now and always.
The old Hebrew book of Proverbs tells us that where there is no vision—which is to say no shared understanding, no common hope, no communal way of seeing the world—the people perish. The religious historian and writer Diana Butler Bass has updated that idea to say that “without a story, we are lost.”
Beloveds, this is our story: That God is with us.
Like any good story, our story has lots of details and more than a few different versions. Those details make the story interesting and inspiring, all the better to become implanted in our hearts, all the easier for us to wrap our heads around it and make our own.
But the details are not the story. A virgin birth is not the story. “No room at the inn” is not the story. Cattle lowing, a baby crying, angels singing, and wise people searching are not the story.
And yet details can accentuate the message and bring the story home.
And so it is that our story contains numerous moments in which an angelic being appears to an ordinary,often beleaguered, and sometimes suffering person with the words: Be not afraid! I come to bring you good news. God is with you.
That’s it; that’s the story: God is with us.
So simple, and yet sorevolutionary. So clear, and yet so hard to trust. So repetitive, and yet soeasy to forget.
repeat cherished traditions, and even act out the story.
And then we snuff out thecandles, take down the decorations, put away the feelings, move on with ourlives, and all but forget our story.
We all but forget that Godis with us.
We who are so attuned tobreaking news tend to forget the always-and-forever news. We who are so committed to doing something about all the bad news forget about the good news. We who are called to dispel the darkness forget to be bearers of the Light. We who are living with everything from devastating diagnoses to more month than money and more corruption and cruelty than our privilege can fathom, forget that we are not alone. That we are filled with Spirit power. That Love walks with us. That God is with us—not merely as an article of faith but also as an everyday grace, a lived reality.
And so Advent comes ’round to wake us up again, to remind us to open our hearts to what is forever and always true. Advent prepares us to welcome and receive this good news more deeply than ever before. Advent invites us to put down our fears and let Love’s presence heal us and empower us. Advent encourages us to open our eyes and behold the many faces of God that surround us, the unexpected strength of God that carries us, and the indwelling Spirit of God that transforms both us and the world through love.
God’s steadfast love comes and stays with us not only as light in the darkness, but also as strength and hope in the everyday. Emmanuel comes to us not only in the story we tell, but also in the lives we have and the people we meet. God is with us not only when our faith is strong, but also when we are convinced that if there is a God they have abandoned us.
Just as darkness makes us long for the light, so hard times open our hearts to the faintest suggestion of good news.
Thank God that the good news of Advent is bursting with joy, that the good news of Christmas is more trumpet blast than suggestion, and that the blessed truth of the story is for all people in every time and place.
The story reminds us that one of the ways God is with us is by seeing us, knowing us, and calling us to new life by participating with the Holy in seeing and loving and healing the world.
Before the angel appeared to old Zechariah with the preposterous news that he and elderly Elizabeth would give birth to a son, God had seen both their faithfulness and their emptiness. Before the angel appeared to Mary with the scandalous news that she would give birth to a trouble-making savior, God had seen her strength and courage. Before the angel appeared to Joseph with the unbelievable news about Mary, God had seen his gentle heart and his desire to do the right thing. Before the angels appeared to shepherds in the fields by night with great news of peace on earth and goodwill to all, God had seen their struggles for dignity and acceptance.
There is a story making the rounds on social media, a story whose details, in these days of artificial intelligence, may or not be factual. It tells of a hospital parking attendant who did far more than park cars; he saw the fear, anguish, and anxiety of family members and patients desperately in need of a parking space so that they could make an appointment or hold a dying loved one’s hand. And so he began reserving spaces for people in distress and, eventually, the hospital had signs made that reserved several parking spaces for families in crisis.
This may or may not have actually happened, but the good news of the story is true nonetheless. Like Raymond, who may or may not be a lowly but life-changing parking lot attendant, God sees us. Like Raymond, God knows our hurts and our needs. Like Raymond, God steps in to give us what we need, to make us and our lives better—and by “us” I mean not individuals, primarily, but all of creation; and by “our lives” I mean everything from loneliness and depression to racial justice, economic equality, creation care, and world peace.
Friends, let us live into the joy of our story. And let us live out the good news we’ve been given, that God’s love is with us in more ways and more often than we realize. Let us live as if God is with us, because they are.
