December 16, 2010

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22-23)

"Oh, rejoice, all Christians loudly, for our joys have now begun; wondrous things our God has done. Tell abroad his goodness proudly, who our race has honored so, that He lives with us below, Joy, oh joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness! Hence all sorrow and repining, for the Sun of grace is shining!" (CW 45:1)

We as Christians do have reason to be rejoicing loudly. The wondrous things that God has done and the very essence of Christmas is that Christ came from heaven above, to earth, to join the human race. And this is exactly what needed to be done in order to redeem us humans and do away with our sadness. This Good News is our joy, which causes us to rejoice. And as we are rejoicing during this crazed time of year, with (as the Advent prayer writer in Christian Worship puts it) the "stress of deadlines and the frenzy of commercialism," we might appear to be acting strange to the watching world. When someone in the watching world catches us rejoicing loudly - maybe we are humming or whistling a Christmas hymn, or maybe we are just smiling obnoxiously - when someone catches us rejoicing loudly, they just might ask us, "what's with you?" Our joy as Christians has nothing to do with what's with us, but has everything to do with who's with us.

God has been with His people throughout the ages. We think of how God was always with the children of Israel in the pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. "Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people." (Exodus 13:22) We think of how God was with the people of the Psalm writer's day, "The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress" (Psalm 46:7) We think of how God will continue to be with His people, as Jesus promised before he physically left the world, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) These are comforting thoughts to us as Christians, to know that God is with us always - that God is omnipresent. But what about all those dark times when we give in to one or all of the temptations and lies of the unholy trinity - the devil, the world, our sinful flesh? At those times are we comforted by the fact that God is with us always? During our dark times the thought that God is with us and sees not only our dark actions, but also our dark thoughts and hearts could cause us to be discomforted and could cause us to repine, to be sorrowful, to be sad.

But what we haven't fully considered in this devotion yet is that Jesus also came to be with us in a different sense as He came to join the human race. Why did Jesus take on human flesh? Paul in his first letter to Timothy includes the incarnation as one of the great mysteries of God, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He (God) appeared in a body, (in the flesh) was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." (1 Timothy 3:16) Why God loved us enough to send His only Son cannot be fully understood and will remain somewhat of a mystery to us humans. Perhaps the best explanation is the simplest one - "God is love." (1 John 4:16) What we do know is that because our God operates with justice, He needed to take on flesh and blood. "God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." (Romans 3:25-26) C. S. Lewis explains why God became man as he once put it this way: "The Son of God became a man that men might become sons of God." "God made him who had no sin to be sin (or a sacrifice for sin) for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21) God needed to come to be with us and to take on flesh and blood so that He could sacrifice blood to atone for the sins of the world. "The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)

And because Jesus, our Immanuel, carried out the plan of Salvation that rescued us from the darkness - a plan which required Him to be born and take on flesh and blood, to live a perfect life in the flesh as our substitute, and to sacrifice His blood that washed away our sins - we now want nothing more than to have Jesus, the shining Sun of grace, to be with us and to stay with us. I'm reminded of the text to a beautiful work sung by choirs around the world - Egil Hovland's Stay With Us. "Stay with us, Lord Jesus. It soon is evening and night is falling. Jesus Christ, the world's true light, shines where the darkness cannot overcome it. Let your light pierce the darkness and fill the Church with its glory." (Luke 24:29) and (John 8:12).

Because Jesus, our Immanuel, not only came to live with and be with us, but because He also came to live for us and die for us and redeem us, we want nothing more than to have our Lord be with us as our light, and stay with us until it's time for Him to take us home so that we can be with Him forever. "Joy oh joy beyond all gladness, Christ has done away with sadness." We don't have to wait to begin rejoicing until we reach our heavenly home where we will be completely void of all sadness. No, because of our hope, and through faith in our Immanuel, our joys have now begun! And if we should get caught rejoicing loudly, and if we are asked, "what's with you?" let's take that as our cue to respond by explaining that it's not what's with us, but it's who's with us. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who came to become one of us and live and die for us. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who is not only with us, but who, through faith, also can be with those to whom we tell His goodness proudly. We rejoice because of our Immanuel who will be coming again to take us to be with Him forever. We rejoice in Jesus, our Immanuel! Amen. Thank you Immanuel for coming into this world as our redeemer, stay with us now and come again Lord Jesus to take us to be with you forever! Amen