Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Brown's Daily Word 12-30-11
Good morning,
Praise the Lord for Christmas. I trust you all had a very blessed and very rich Christmas. Laureen, Janice, Jeremy, Micah, Simeon, Ada. Sunita, Andy, Jessica, and Tom all came home for Christmas. It was great time of celebration, worship and feasting. I have posted some of our Christmas Eve and Christmas day photographs on my Face Book page. You are most welcome to visit them there.
This is the last Friday of 2011. Praise the Lord for His faithfulness throughout the passing year. We will also count on His faithfulness in the coming year.
We read in John 1 about the essence of Christmas, the salient truth about the Incarnation, "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Eugene Petersen in The Message paraphrased this verse, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood" (John 1:14). Dwell means "to live in a tent" or, as military folks would understand, "to bivouac." Theologians define it as "to tabernacle." In the Old Testament this word dwelt (past tense of dwell) and its derivatives literally denote "residence." Often the word was used to depict the glorious presence of God that resided in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple.
Thus, when Jesus became flesh and blood He moved into the neighborhood, He took up residence; He "tabernacled" among us.
Before Jesus was born God visited His people performing mighty and miraculous works. God's people would then stack stones or build a monument or erect a synagogue in honor of God's revelation. The physical erection of monuments and buildings was their way of saying, "God was here." The power and presence of God had visited them in a place and so, in order not to forget, they constructed a reminder. When Jesus entered the world the verb tense changed from past to present -- from "was" to "is."
Because of Jesus' birth, because of the incarnation of God, because the Word became flesh, we now say: "God is here." God is present in all of His splendor and glory. We don't have to erect structures to remind us of God's visited presence. God is already here. "God is here" is more than a theological doctrine, it has practical implications. First, Jesus became a man to show us God. When Jesus became a man He showed that God was not merely a principle but a person. Jesus was not an idea of God, not a picture of God, but God Himself in human form.
Two young men on a battlefield in World War II made it to the safety of a foxhole in the midst of enemy fire. As they looked out before them across the battlefield they perceived the horror of dead and dying men, twisted barbed wire, the earth scarred with deep holes left by cannon fire. Many men lay lifeless, others crying out for help. Finally one of the men cried, "Where in the world is God?" As they continued to watch and listen they soon noticed two medics, identified by the red cross on their arms and their helmets, carefully making their way across the perilous scene. As they watched, the medics stopped and began to load a wounded soldier onto their stretcher. Once loaded they began to work their way to safety. As the scene unfolded before them, the other soldier now boldly answered the honest, but piercing question of his friend, "There is God! There is God!"
When Jesus became a man He came to show us God. He came in the midst of the loneliness and the horror of a world gone mad. Yet, in the chaos and confusion, Jesus announced that God is here. Where in the world is God? God is here in Christ. Christ has come among us to show us who God is and what God is. Jesus shows us God in a way that we can understand. In a way that renews us and that gives us hope.
In one act of becoming human He identified with our pain. He felt the pain of loneliness, the hurt of rejection, and the sadness of losing a loved one to death. He also felt the scars of mental and physical abuse. When we suffer pain, we want others to understand. We want others to be like us so they can identify with us. We don't want to be alone. We want others to feel our pain and our hurt. When Jesus became a man He understood us, He identified with us, He felt our pain, and He hurt.
Joseph Damien was a nineteenth-century missionary who ministered to people with leprosy on the island of Molokai, Hawaii. Those suffering grew to love him and revered the sacrificial life he lived out before them. One morning before Damien was to lead daily worship he was pouring some hot water into a cup when the water swirled out and fell onto his bare foot, it took him a moment to realize that he had not felt any sensation. Gripped by the sudden fear of what this could mean, he poured more hot water on the same spot and felt nothing whatsoever. Damien immediately knew what had happened. As he walked tearfully to deliver his sermon, no one at first noticed the difference in his opening line. He normally began every sermon with, "My fellow believers." This morning he began with, "My fellow lepers."
God is here. He is here understanding our hurt, and identifying with our pain. He feels. He hurts. He cries. Jesus became a man so God becomes touchable, approachable, and reachable. Often when we refer to God's location we point upward or look toward the heavens. Most often we think of God as being up there, far removed from the cares and concerns of this created world, but because Jesus became a man God came down here, living in our midst. We could never reach Him up there, but in love He came down here to us. He became touchable, approachable, and reachable.
In Jesus our Emmanuel.
Brown
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