GOD SHOWS UP
Author: Fr. Michael Byron December 24, 2021
Throughout history, we Jews and Christians have had a large variety
of ways of thinking about who and what God is. You only have to scan
the pages of the bible to see that. For some of us, sometimes, God is
an inner life force, very close. For others, God is far away – in the
heavens, and too busy to much notice what we experience here.
For
some, He is the tender face of mercy, the one who always forgives. For
others, He is the stern judge, ready to name our every fault and to
punish.
For some, He is the consummate
peacemaker. For others, He is a warrior. For some, God is the source
of social order and stability. For others, God is a revolutionary whose
wish is to upend the present order of things for the sake of justice.
Pick your favorite scripture, and you can find any of these.
It
seems that a lot of how we think about God depends upon how we want or
need God to be for us in any given moment; created in our image. But of
course, that’s entirely backward. We must look to God to disclose who
and how He is.
We speak of God as a Holy
Mystery and rightly so. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t speak at
least a few things about God with truth and confidence. And that is
what this Christmas celebration enables us to do, with joy and
gratitude.
His name is Jesus who was – at
various times in his earthly life, the forgiver, the judge, the
peace-maker, the trouble-maker, the observer of the law, the breaker of
the law, the strong man, and the deliberately vulnerable man. What does
that tell us about God? It tells us that God shows up for us, and
never more so than when we are in greatest need. Each of the four
gospels has its own way of saying it, but they tell us of God who cares
desperately for our well-being, particularly when things seem bleak. He
is the star in the dark night. He is the gathering in the cold stable.
He is the one who arrives at the Jordan river to share in our search
for salvation; the one who became flesh to dwell among us. He is
Emmanuel. Not God, but God-with-us! That’s the only god we know – the
one who not only cares but the one who shows up and abides with us
always. God would not have had to do that, just as God would never have
needed to create us in the first place. He didn’t need to pour out
Holy Spirit into our community, but He did – and still does. Every day.
That’s lesson #1 about who, how, and what
God is. God is ever with us. Not merely in our minds and prayers, but
with presence here and now. Thanks be to God.
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