The Christmas Story truly began long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Long before the coming of the great Israelite King David. Long before the patriarch Moses, Abraham, and Noah. In fact, the story began “in the beginning.” (Sorry for the obvious statement!)
Adam and Eve are the characters of the story that fell apart. The plot seemingly went askew. Humankind broke the covenant with the Creator-god, and we are still dealing with the consequences today. The Creator-god has a solution to rescue the story from a “bad ending.”
Let’s back up again. One of the things that fascinates me is God’s way of working with humans. In the Garden of Eden, he walked with Adam and Eve. He spoke to Abraham and promised him blessings that would extend through and to the whole world. He met with Moses several times. He was with Joshua, Samuel, and David. And he was with Jesus and his Apostles. While he is of course the god of the heavenly beings and all that is created, he is foremost God of humankind, for it is with humankind that he is working to rescue the fallen story from having a “bad ending.”
By coming and dealing with human beings, God is not distant. He is not silent in dealing with the problems of the world. He is not interested in “coaching” his chosen ones from the sidelines. He is the quintessential team player, both offense and defense. He is here with us. In the dirt, with those who were made from dirt. Playing in the dirt, helping us figure the game out (sorry for the mixed metaphors).
Recently, one of the most evident ways I am finding that God is here, local, and “with us” (the definition of Emmanuel is “God with us”) in a real sense, is through the use of language. (Stay with me, it won’t be long.)
Language is not reality. Language has inherent limitations in it. While we may understand through language, we do not experience through language necessarily. What we experience is reality. When the Scriptures were written, they were written in language. God could not simply impute to us knowledge of perfect reality. What he did was use humans to communicate his message to humans. The Scriptures had to be written in language, albeit the common, or “street,” language of the times. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek. We now read in English. What a task: to understand God’s message in English! Interpretation is a messy undertaking, and the further we dig in the more we realize, if we are willing, is that God is not interested in making everything easily and simply and neatly understood. In fact, it can be sometimes downright confusing, frustrating, and tiring.
But if the Spirit of God is at work within us, we can experience the blessing of the Creator-god rescuing his creation by coming to us in such a way that we can be working with him (or, if you are still with the game metaphor, “playing with him”). He is coming to us from underneath, speaking to us here, in human language. While we may not “get it” because we do not know the ancient languages (i.e. “rules of the game”), we can certainly know God because he is willing to come to us. He is the main character, the team leader. And he created.
He is with us.
Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.
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