God With Us – Merry Christmas Everyone

I want to start out making a theological disclaimer. I am not discounting the virgin birth, on the contrary it’s significance in the Incarnation is amazing, but it does not hold daily, hourly, fascination for me. It is one of those miracles that I read about and think, cool, the intricacies of God are amazing. But in my daily world, I just don’t give a lot of thought to the virgin birth. I do give thought to Luke 1:37. This verse embedded into the middle of this profound story holds the key for me to many things. It is this pivot point where I get one of the significances of the virgin birth. “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

This Christmas season there is a word in this verse that has jumped out to me. More about that later.

As I said, it is hard for me to be amazed at the virgin birth. It just does not resonant in my daily life. My wife is not pregnant. My children are grown. And while many of my kids friends are getting married and starting families, I am still at least 40 weeks away from being a grandparent. (This in NOT an announcement!!!) The closest I get to thinking about birth is the work I am doing in Malawi, building a couple of birthing centers, but even there, we are in construction mode, not “push ’em out” mode.

The word that jumps out at me in Luke 1:37 is ‘with’. I grew up hearing sermons about being the hand and feet of God, but did not really pay attention. Wisdom is wasted on youth. Anyway, the word ‘with’ has more meaning to me now as an slightly wiser, if still not very mature, adult. As a nation and the world we spend a lot of energy and time on ‘with’. As a rule, we are ‘with’ creatures. Creatures who long for community, acceptance and a place of belonging. In our personal lives we are ‘with’ the Diabetic Online Community, our church both locally and internationally, our circles at work, our Starbucks Barrista’s, our families, we are just one big interconnected circle of ‘with’!

As I view our need for connectedness and the desire to be ‘with’, it occurs to me this is another area that has been perverted from our original design. There are so many of us whose first thought is not of others but of ourselves. The opposite of ‘with’.

We have been privileged to be ‘with’ the dear people of Malawi this year! It has been a wonderful and fulfilling time and we are trusting that it will continue in 2013 and beyond, but I am reminded today, Christmas Eve, that WITH is wherever we are. Who is my neighbor? Yep, the folks in the DOC, the Barrista’s, the servers in the restaurant, the flight attendants I see weekly, the church, our family and literally our neighbors and our friends in Malawi.

This past year we have experienced WITH first hand; through the nurses and doctors, meals and words of encouragement. We have seen people who make less than $20 a month share all they have to show the meaning of WITH to their neighbors.

God is reaching out to each one of us to celebrate the fun times and to comfort us in the hard times. How? WITH! He has chosen to us to literally be His hands and feet. Remember that campaign several years ago that passed out those little red buttons that said “you are loved”? As a teen I thought, “how corny”; as an adult, I begin to get the significance. We connect to God when we listen to His prompting a to Love others. WE are the tangible way God shows His love to others! WE ARE THE WITH!

It humbles me to be chosen to be WITH you. It is an awesome provoking thought to me that God would place anyone on my mind and heart and in doing so reach you in the moments of your need! It is the image of a kindly Father reaching out his arms to give you a hug of comfort and say, “there, there child I am WITH you”.

God reached out to us and sent His Son to be WITH us, so nothing would be impossible WITH Him!

Spend some time this Season WITH others, you’ll be amazed at the impossible that happens!

Merry Christmas!