God with us, Emmanuel

This Christmas Eve, the church holds before it the image of God born among us. The Genesis 1 creation story makes the bold claim that humankind is made in the image of God. This is the occasion of God remaking God's own self in human flesh, as one of us.

This is an imaginative leap - for God, for theologians, for all of us. I have been pondering this. Not to ask "how could this be?" But to ask "was ist das?" - what is this? What does it mean? How does it matter?

I have found more than a few ways to answer this for myself. One is rooted in the historicity of who this Messiah was. Not an elite. Like 90% of those in his time and place, Jesus was born and lived a subsistence life, on the margins. He was in the form of a servant/slave, so that his Lordship was not one which presses down from on high, but chooses to be with the lowly. In her womb, his mother saw that God wanted to upset the powerful and exalt the lowly. This is a God who speaks to humanity, for we all know weakness. We all are embeded in a world which values power over compassion and comraderie. After all, the powerful defend their positions because they know their own fragility.

Another answer is in the way Jesus' ministry incarnated, put flesh on the bones, of God's beautiful vision for humanity. A world where the lame walk and the blind see, where sharing is the norm, a world which has no outcasts. In God's kingdom, love is the rule against which all is measured. And it is the Way we live.

But the Incarnation gets me at a gut level. It is emotionally affective and effective. God with us. This is really implicit in that kin-dom vision where people live together in peace, where all have enough. We can't do that on our own. We need each other. And God is in it with us. "I will never abandon or forsake you" are strange words to imagine from a little bitty baby. And there is so much evidence of brokenness and forsaking in this world.

But God's hope is for us. Christmas, the Nativity, is a spiritual gift of God's own self to God's people. It is grace made real. Imagine that. "Pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel." God is with us, really really with us. God bless us, each and every one.

Credits:
Michael Torevell. (c.2020). O Come Emmanuel. Digital painting.

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