God Gets Low

Christmas Day

December 25, 2012

God Gets Low

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

How does God dwell among us? We have bundled up Jesus so tightly in His super cute swaddling clothes that we are tempted to see God as cuddly and treat Him like a tame house pet.

Next year we will read and discuss the Chronicles of Narnia and one of the common themes of all the books is that God is not a tame animal. He is wild. His ways are His own and beyond us. But many of the characters in the books try to treat God like a tame animal. These attempts to “pet” God don't end well.

Unbelievers invite this tamed and counterfeit God into their homes during the holidays. This tame god is a harmless and jolly old man who gives you stuff. And their celebration of Christmas is entirely consistent with a harmless and tamed God—they care only about sentiment and food and things. A small and packaged God can only give you small and packaged things that will not last.

But even believers are tempted to treat God like a tamed house pet. Moses treated God as though He was a tame God. Only God's mercy kept Moses from being destroyed. After a request from Moses to see God in all His wild beauty and fullness, God protected Moses and told him,

“You cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live… There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.” (Exodus 33)

God could not dwell with Moses, unless He took special precautions. A crude comparison would be a solar eclipse. Normally staring at the sun is going to destroy your eyes. But if the moon covers the sun and you are cover your eyes with special protective dark glasses, you can catch a glimpse of the sun's glory. Again, just a crude comparison, because the sun is a dim flickering Christmas light next to its Creator, who made it and every single other sun in the universe. If we can't even look at one of His trillions of stars in the sky, then how can we ever get close to Him?

The answer is that God dwells among us by getting low. By becoming one of us. By hiding His beauty and power and greatness in the lowly body of a man. Our wild God who created the universe by His Word sent that same Word into this ugly world and allowed His beauty to be wrapped up in human skin and bones, blood and flesh. The God who created all the galaxies in an instant allowed Himself to grow in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary for 40 weeks. He knit Himself together in His mother's womb and then for 30 year hid His dangerous wildness and power in lowly human flesh so that He might be near us. And in the end that flesh once held in the arms of His mother would be flogged and beaten and nailed to a cross where Christ was forsaken by all, even His holy Father, and then laid in a tomb. And then He got up.

How does God dwell among us? By getting low with His conception and at His birth, and then sinking to the lowest depths anyone can go. This is what our untamed God has done. And He did for you.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.