The Hope of Glory!

Christmas this year “feels” different. While merchants hope for a Season that will make the year profitable, automobile manufacturers offer 0% interest, and families scurry to demonstrate the holiday spirit, an uneasiness remains. All our activity is muted by the reality and continuing threat of terrorism. Markets are uncertain. People are afraid to travel, and even to handle mailed Christmas cards. Americans are overseas in an inhospitable, dangerous place. And the future is cloudy.

It is a good time for us to remember that into such a world Christ came. Perhaps this Season we can get beyond the saccharine talk of universal human love, or the delusion of human-based peace, and really talk about the meaning and impact of Christmas. Christmas is about God—it is not about brotherly love, time with family, or sharing gifts. The events in Bethlehem about 20 centuries ago tell us who God is; how God works; and what God does.

God is utterly different—yet remains engaged with creation. This is the grand paradox of the Christian faith, and the logic behind the Incarnation. Tension is intrinsic because it is a paradox. Two extremes, while resolving the tension, are not true to the God of the Bible. The totality of God is not exhausted by the material universe (pantheism). Neither is God a disinterested, impotent “watchmaker,” who set the universe in motion only to watch it from a divine Lazy Boy (deism).

While “mighty works of God in history” are often cited as proof of God’s continuing involvement with the world, these events are, admittedly, ambiguous. However, there is one event that does not allow for shades of gray. Either God was in Christ at the Bethlehem stable, or God was not. If God was not, the claims stemming from the Christmas event become irrelevant.

The uniqueness of Christ resides not in birthplace, teaching, or martyrdom. Christ is unique because of a peculiar relationship with God, who is utterly different. The difference which is God’s has been captured by the historic “omni’s” (omnipresent, omnipotent, etc.). While I cringe at the Greek philosophical basis for these sweeping affirmations, I understand and endorse the attempt to verbalize the utter difference of God.

While different, God’s continuing involvement, and the role of Christ, is captured in verses like: In Christ, all things hold together or In Him we live and move and have our being. Christ is the Superglue of the universe—in all and between all. This foundational belief gives value to all creation—the rocks and hills, the grass and birds, and each and every human being. God cares enough about “all things” to be there, holding it together.

God is utterly different, upon whom we are utterly dependent.

God works through love and humility. The appearance of Christ is rooted in God’s love: For God so loved the cosmos, that God gave the one and only Son. Paul’s poem (or an early hymn?) in Philippians captures the humiliating work of God in Christ: Christ Jesus … made himself nothing … humbled himself … was obedient unto death. What a startling claim! The God who spoke the universe into being, who is called “sword and shield,” who rides on the wings of the storm – chooses to come in loving humility. While this aspect of God receives hints (e.g. the still, small voice; weeping like Rachel; gathering lambs in his arms; and careful of bruised reeds) nothing really matches the magnitude of risk that came with the Incarnation. Christ is born a vulnerable baby to be raised by a wholly human man and woman in a dangerous, disease-ridden world. Not only that, Christ is born in such a way that families are scandalized and he is marginalized. Consequently, Christ has no shame in calling us “brother” or “sister.”

No one is beneath or beyond the loving reach of God.

God brings hope to our alienation. What does a God, who doesn’t need us, hope to accomplish by voluntary loving self-humiliation? The issue is reconciliation—not avoidance of punishment. We live in a state of alienation and separation. From the Garden of Eden every potential relationship of human existence is wounded. We are separated from God, others, Creation, and even ourselves. The battle within us, which each and every one of us has experienced, is an evidence of the reality of alienation within our own existence.

We are unable to cure our disease, heal our wound, and reestablish relationships. But, thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift, we have hope in Jesus Christ. The fundamental work of God in Christ is reconciliation—in all its dimensions. God is not about giving us a ticket to heaven; God wants us to be reconciled. Truly, Christ in us is the hope of glory!

Joy to the entire cosmos—the Lord is come!

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