One of my favorite Christmas songs is “O Come, O Come,Emmanuel”. I think it’s a lovely song and also has a great message. The word “Emmanuel”is Hebrew for “God with us.” That’s what Christmas is really all about. Through Jesus, God now lives among us.
Now, God has always been with his people in one way or another. In the Old Testament, God was with his people through various intermediaries. The wonder of Christmas is that now God himself lives among humanity. That’s the message of this week’s Christmas text, John 1:1-18.
Though it doesn’t give us the same types of details as the gospels of Matthew and Luke, John 1:1-18 tells the story of Jesus’ coming in a unique way. It doesn’t give us details about Jesus’ parents or what was happening when he was born, but it does tell us what was going on “behind the scenes” in God’s plan. From this, we learn a few things about what Jesus accomplished here on earth and how that affects us.
Christmas Is Not Jesus’ True Beginning
When God created the world, Jesus was there. His birth on earth wasn’t his actual beginning. He was integral to creation. All things int he world were made by and through him. He was a part of God and he was a blessing to humanity, but he wasn’t part of humanity, at least not a first.
All that changed when Jesus was born in a stable to a young woman named Mary. Jesus became human. He was still fully God, but now he was also fully human (none of us completely understand how that works exactly, but God says it’s true, so it must be).
In Jesus, God Dwells Among Us
John 1:14 says that in Jesus, God dwelled among us. The Greek word for “dwelled” in John 1 is the same word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament for the tabernacle. This was the tent that represented God’s presence in the Israelite camp during the Exodus and after they entered into the Promised Land. It was where people came to meet with God before the temple was built.
Jesus was a living tabernacle, a sign of God’s presence to all people, not just the Israelites. He “moved into the neighborhood” as the Message translation puts it. He came down and lived fully as a human. As a baby, he cried like all of us did. Jesus pooped in diapers. He experienced growing pains like all of us. Everything that we experience as humans, he experienced too. He didn’t just watch from afar, he lived the human life in all its mess and heartbreak.
Jesus Is a Unique Mediator
Now, since the beginning of the Biblical story, God has used people to be his mediator and to represent him to humanity. Abraham was one example of this. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, all of these people represented God in one way or another. Some of them delivered God’s messages. Others did miraculous signs and wonders because that’s what God told them to do. Some led the Israelite people, and in that role, served as God’s representatives on earth.
God has always been at work in the world. He has always cared for his people. We see in the Exodus story that God hears the cries of his people and he reacts. God’s care and presence is not a new thing.
What is new is God himself living life as a human. Jesus is fully God and yet fully lives as a human. In Jesus, God doesn’t just mediate through a human being, he actually becomes a human being. This is a whole new level of understanding and presence.
Jesus Allows Us to See God in A New Light
This doesn’t just mean that God understands our human experience in a whole new way. It also means that we can understand God on a whole new level. Jesus is God with skin on. We have a hard time understanding and relating to a spiritual being that is unlike us in so many ways and so much greater than we are. It’s much easier for us to understand a human being who walks and talks and looks like every other human being we’ve ever encountered in our lives. Jesus, since he lived as a human person and we have records of what he was like, can help us to understand God in a whole new way.
John says as much in John 1:14, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” When we look at the glory of Jesus, we see the glory of God. As we discover the grace that was an integral part of Jesus’ life and teachings, we can see God’s grace in a whole new way. When we understand the truth that Jesus taught, we learn God’s truth better.
Once again in verse 18, John says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closes relationship with the Father, has made him known.” We know who God is because we see who Jesus is.
In Jesus, God Is Near Us
The fancy word for this idea is “imminence”. It simply means that God is close to us. Yes, God is far above us in power and in person, but he is also right next to us. He gives us our very breath. Because Jesus has experienced human life, he is not only close to us, but he also knows what we are going through.
That can be so comforting to us. There is no pain that Jesus did not experience in his life. He lost the man who was his father, Joseph. He was betrayed by one of his best friends. Jesus was persecuted by those in power. He was wrongly convicted as a criminal. He was mocked and made fun of. Like so many of us, he was treated unfairly. Unlike most others in his culture, he was never married and experienced the pain of loneliness and unfulfilled sexual desire.
Whether joy or sadness, through Jesus, God has experienced what it is like to be human. No matter what your life looks like this Christmas, God sees, God hears, and God knows. He knows not just intellectually, but really knows intimately your struggles and your joys. May that thought bring you comfort and joy this Christmas.
PS: If you haven’t already make sure to check out last week’s post and the post before that, which are the first two posts in this series. Also, make sure to follow me on Instagram to be see a Christmas Carol a Day, as I share lyrics from classic Christmas songs as well as a little bit of the story behind it.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash