Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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Who is God ???

"Christmas isn't Christmas ..." Those words keep tumbling around in my head since the choir sang them a few Sundays ago. For whatever reasons they keep popping up, probably because I've begun my annual struggle to "get into the Spirit of Christmas." It really hasn't helped me our weather of late has been more like that of late April or early May than of a typical Michigan December (did I put "typical" and "Michigan" together in the same sentence???) . There's not been any snow and it's been sixty degrees outside. Even for Michigan, the weather has been extraordinary. It has been so nice outside that the "Michigan Paranoia" is starting to kick in. If it's this nice now, how bad will it get later (don't we always pay dearly for unseasonably good weather). Is the worst winter, the worst blizzard in the history of the world lurking around the corner???.

Not that I'm complaining. It was so nice to go cut our Christmas trees and not have to fight snow or feel the bite of a cold wind. The hardest part of putting up the trees was, once again, getting them into the tree stands (we don't want to talk about that part, just let me say we did end up buying all new tree stands this year). As I ran the electrical cords and checked the Christmas lights for the outside of the house so Susie and I could get the shrubs decorated, I was very thankful that my fingers were not chilled and numb, there was no rain, sleet or snow making its way past the collar of my coat and down my neck. After I ran the chords and checked the lights, I had to go to a funeral home and I was even more thankful, when I came home, to see Susie had gone ahead without me and strung the lights all beautifully along the front of the house (thank you ... thank you ... dear wife).

When I get honest about it, the weather (snow or no snow, cold or no cold), the gaily decorated trees, the colorful lights, and the other such holiday stuff, have very little or nothing to do with the "why?" of Christmas, little or nothing to do with "The Spirit of Christmas," little or nothing to do with the "who?" of Christmas. Altogether too often, I/we forget Christmas has solely to do with the coming of God to be with us and to be so very human, like us. Christmas is about recognizing the arrival of God. Perhaps the author of our Advent Study, J. Ellsworth Kalas, has hit the nail on the head when he observes: "And in truth, even those of us who call ourselves believers have times when we live, work, and think as if Jesus had not come." It is the saddest state of affairs when we live, work, and think this way at Christmas time.

After all these centuries, we may see angels, shepherds, Magi, a baby in a manger, and all sorts of other wonderful, amazing, inspiring things, but we are still unable to see God when we gaze upon the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes. We remain unable to "get" what Christmas is about. We continue to look for God, wandering, wondering and hoping somehow, some way, we will happen upon the one for whom we seek. We spend hours, days, weeks, months, years with all the details of Christmas, it's people, it's events. However, when all is said and done, we tend to end up without the realization and without the recognition of "God with us." On one level we are so familiar with it all, but, on another level, we find ourselves in the same state of mind and spirit as Jesus' friend and disciple, Phillip who after years at Jesus's side said to Jesus: "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? (John 14:8?9)

Those are awesome words Jesus said to Phillip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." They are words that have been true from the very beginning, from the moment Jesus drew his first breathe as one of us. If we take those words seriously, then Christmas becomes less and less about things we tend to focus on, even when we are at our traditionally Christian best, less about the virgin birth, less about angelic messages and dreams, less about heavenly choirs, less about shepherds, less about magi, less about prophetic oracles, even less about Mary and Joseph. Those are things we can discuss and argue about forever. If we take those words seriously, then Christmas becomes more and more about seeing Jesus, really seeing Jesus, seeing all there is to see of Jesus, seeing only Jesus, until that moment when in seeing Jesus, we finally see God for who God really is.

Who is this God? This God is the one who comes to us, who loves us so much as to leave behind the realm of the divine in order to fully embrace the human condition. This God is one who gives up everything so each of us can be blessed beyond all imagination. This God is one who becomes a human infant, who becomes totally dependent upon the love and care of others in order to survive, who needs others, especially needs the love and compassion of others, who is innocent and unsullied, because this God is one who is making a totally new start, one human being at a time, who hurts no one and who is vulnerable. Who is this God? This God is one who comes to us after the fashion of the Suffering Servant described by the prophet Isaiah:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. (Isa 53:2-5)

Who is this God? This God is one who died and who rose again, whom, if we learn to recognize him, will ultimately greet us with:

Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me some-thing to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'" Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'" The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. (Matt 25:34-40)

So this is Christmas, and this is what it is about, that all be blessed with the presence of God!