journey onWord with us

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

They’re the words which ring out at the very end of a thrilling brass flourish that opens the beloved Christmas song by the same name.

And it’s simply not true for everyone.

Lest we fall into the trap of believing that there’s something new under the sun, this isn’t a lament that began with us or our world today. It’s a truth rooted in the very first garden whose through-line pierces the manger and knits it to our right now. As I’ve thoughtfully navigated this Advent’s begin, I’ve been especially moved by one particular thought. The story of Christmas is gloriously saturated in promise and purpose, but at the root of its purpose was a problem. His coming was a coming for.

Yes, it was the very real birth of our glorious Hope. Yes, it was a holy night. But God the Father did not “prepare Him room.” Things on earth were not made right in order to receive its King, nor were they made right by the simple act of His arriving. He came in a manner akin to how He would later describe Himself—gentle and lowly. The announcers may have been a heavenly host, but their audience was the least of these. The King of Kings was born to and for the common and broken. He was a friend of sinners not a patron to the powerful. The Father didn’t spare any injustice, insult, lash or loss that we experience. In every way, He was like us—except in the way He was the only One who could save us.

Redemption’s plan was birthed at His. And yet, it would yield—as He did—to the rhythm of evening and morning for the exact number of days the Father prescribed. Those days were many times good and joyful like ours, and they were many times hard or mournful like ours. He laughed, served, fed and healed—but He didn’t always. With His arriving, it wasn’t finished. In dying and rising again, sin’s price was paid and power broken, but brokenness remained. Sin’s author was left to roam free on the earth, and all is not yet well.

In some way, shape or form, this is the reason your heart may not be a confetti cannon at Christmas. The longing God knit into our sacred center, when He made us in His image, is an ache only further irritated by the things of this world. But take heart, dear brother and sister and seeker! He has overcome the world.

In becoming one of us, He began cooing then crawling then walking His way to the cross and out from the grave. It is finished, even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. Dear brother and sister and seeker, let not your heart be troubled. May it be glad and filled with wide-eyed wonder and unshakable hope. And when it isn’t always, He’s Emmanuel in that too.