Immanuel

Isaiah 7:14

We are in the season of Immanuel. 

That is the core of Christmas—God descended to us in Jesus Christ, fully entering our existence as human beings, even beginning that existence in the same way all of us do—being born. God is with us in every possible imagining of that phrase.

The first great miracle of this event is that God descended. 

Most often the spiritual life is thought of as an ascent. We feel we must lift ourselves into the presence of God. In order to be spiritual people, we have to rise from the world with its crassness, crudity, and corruption. In order to find God, we have to climb the mountain. We see it in biblical figures like Daniel, Ezekiel, and John of Patmos, all of whom rose from ordinary time into apocalyptic presence—remembering the original meaning of “apocalypse” as being “vision of the divine,” instead of some cataclysmic end to all that is. We see it in analogies like Jacob’s Ladder, climbing to God, forgetting that in the actual story, the angels descended to Jacob.

We get ourselves in trouble trying to rise to God. The story of Babel serves us well here. What was the problem? The people thought that the only way to God and God’s power was to storm the gates of heaven—a spiritual ascent gone amok. The focus on ascent fixes the focus on us, distracting us from the real object of our spiritual practice—being with God without self-centeredness, self-absorption, etc.—just freely being with God in sweet communion. 

In short, our propensity to sinful self-focus infects even our spirituality.

So, God meets us as we are, removing the focus on our action and our need to be in control of whatever happens. God descends to us, removing the need to climb. Just be, just sit still—God is with us. What wonderful grace! We can relax. We can stop moving. We can relieve that stress from our shoulders—God comes to us, we don’t have to fret about being with God. God is here. 

The second great miracle in this event is that God united with every aspect of our being.

One of my favorite medieval pieces of art is an etching from somewhere around the 9th Century. It shows Mary nursing Jesus by the fire while Joseph takes care of washing and drying Jesus’ diapers. God could not more fully enter ordinary time—our time. 

The import of this move is that God knows us—really knows us. God understands us—fully understands us. God enters our existence—not with damning judgment—but with redeeming grace. By entering the ordinary time of human existence, God knows what trips us up, what baffles us, what leads to the infernal messes we create, and why we seem lost in the far country a good bit of the time. It is not like what can happen—a holy man or woman who lives sequestered away from ordinary time decides to offer counsel with no comprehension of what real life is really like. What was meant to be helpful becomes irrelevant—or worse, castigation of us less holy folk. Not so with God—God knows, God understands, and so God meets us with what we truly need to find God here and now in the very midst of ordinary time. 

The third great miracle of this event is that God affirms who and what we are. 

Recall that on the Sixth Day of creation, God made human beings and declared us very good. Nothing has changed. We are still those good creatures formed by the love of God. 

That may seem like a denial of the world as it is—a world that often seems a shambles and a wreck through human sinfulness, willfulness, and obstinance. But, no, God with us is not a denial of the consequences of human sin—nor is it a softening of the demand that we take responsibility for the messes we create through sin—instead, it is the affirmation that God never gives up on us. God waits for us—the Waiting Father. God waits for us to remember who we are and whose we are. 

So, year after year, we circle back to this season of comfort and joy. God is still entering our world. God is still uniting with us in every aspect of our being. God still believes us to be the good creations God made us to be. Therefore, WAKE UP! See yourself and all others as we truly are at the most existential level—children of God—unique acts of God’s creative will. 

And then make amends. Work to be whom God made us to be. In this way, we fully enter the experience of the season. We find God in our midst. We actualize the promises of God with us. We fully enter the joy of Immanuel. 

Truly, we are in a time of miracles.