journey onWord with us

I’m going to break pattern on this last post of Advent and invite you first to experience our song for this week (“In Your Care” by 4Him) by clicking here. And if it is also helpful, here is a link to the lyrics. This is certainly not a mandate. It is only an intentional invite.

The humanity of Jesus is something I have come to see and know more deeply since beginning to write for Passion Week one more than ten years ago. The song that chose me for this final week of Advent centers squarely on that humanity by imagining the precious heart of the yet born Christ child for Mary, Joseph and His people. I am deeply grateful that I don’t have to attempt to speak my words to you. It is hard enough in stopping every sentence or three to compose myself while typing. I can’t imagine having to stand and speak what this song wells up inside of me.

It’s more than a challenge to wrap one’s mind around Jesus being an infant or adolescent. We know He couldn’t have been a “terrible two,” but how hard would it be to parent a perfect child (maybe you’ve had one or more who insisted they were <insert smiley face emoji here>)? God’s inconceivable plan meant for Jesus to be born and grow like every one of us, which meant he had parents who provided and guided. In very much the requisite way we are, Jesus was a dependent. And in a way that we can’t quite, Jesus loved his earthly mother and father. I love the way this song imagines that love in the anticipation of being born.  I love the way this song speaks the truth of this one layer of Jesus’ submission to the limits of becoming one of us.

“I’ll be in your care,” the first two occasions of the chorus begin. The One who divided day from night by speaking the celestial sources of light into existence to mark days and seasons and years (Gen. 1:14) submits Himself to being changed and fed. He accepts counsel and obeys. He will say during His ministry years that He had not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. How beautiful is the picture of Him fulfilling the fifth commandment as fully man who was first fully a boy. It’s been impossible for me to hear those words that begin the chorus without tearing up. The gravity and beauty of Jesus’ humility wrecks me.

The sentiments imagined for Mary and Joseph are equally beautiful and moving. And those directed to His people speak an earnest and meaningful hope, but the ones which literally took my breath away were those of the final stanza and chorus. For me, they represent the fullest expression of the fully God, fully man mystery. The incomprehensible truth of Jesus in the womb and through the tomb. In every precious breath, the Creator and Savior of the world was God in flesh. He both knew and went through. He didn’t supplant, He submitted.

What begins as directed to both mom and dad then continues to a comfort that could only be meant for Mary, finishes in a way that truly feels meant for us all. And in the moment where a breath was quite literally caught up in my throat, the chorus takes a momentously meaningful one-eighty. The precious sentiment of God in flesh shifts from the child who came as one of us to the King who came for all of us. The boldest expression of His humanity (placing Himself in the care of a teenager and carpenter) turns to the boldest expression of His divinity (He is their and our God). One of the thoughts that most moves me is that of Mary standing near the base of the Cross. There can be no argument she was chosen intentionally by God to be the earthly mother of Jesus. In her encounters with the angels and her dear cousin who bore the Savior’s herald, she believes and perceives uniquely. Maybe more fully said, it is the both-and of that and the Spirit within her. It would make sense to me that was also true as Jesus grew and when He had to go (from her home toward His express mission). I expect she knew things in her heart that confounded everyone else. But it was altogether something else to be near Him in the times and places very near when He became sin so He could save us. And then when He ascended so He could come again. I cannot know a mother’s heart. I’ve seen and experienced it up close but cannot know it truly. But I know it well enough to know some manner of its ache in suffering and separation. How deeply beautiful are the words of the concluding refrain:

You’ll be in My care
Safely harbored there
My heavenly host will follow you close
But always remember, please be aware
You will be in my care

Oh, the thrilling mystery of God in flesh. Oh, the tender and triumphant imagining of the heart of Jesus in this week’s song,

Merry Christmas, brothers and sisters. And if you’re reading this and don’t yet believe, today is the very best day and this moment is the very best moment to give your heart to Jesus. Sincerely speaking the words out loud or in your heart that you believe in Him and that He died for your sins and rose again to pay the price that you could not. If/when you do that, fully receive the lavish and thrilling gift of unconditional forgiveness He’s given you. Embrace and celebrate that He has genuinely made you new. I, and we at Journey onWord, sing and celebrate with you! And please use this link to tell us! We’d be thrilled to come alongside and celebrate with you.

Glory to God in the Highest!