Healing Rays of Righteousness

The preparations we make, the activities that consume our energy during these four weeks of Advent, say a lot about who we expect to come. They reveal the truth about our personal relationship with the WHO of Christmas. The question, who is coming, reminds us that the focus of our Christmas celebration should be on a person, not on a place, thing or season.

The biblical answer to our question is that God is coming into our world in the person of Jesus Christ to save, shepherd and comfort us. He is the promised holy child of Bethlehem.

In the centuries preceding the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, many prophets insisted that deliverance from the troubles and oppressions of God’s children could only be accomplished by a deliverer sent by God himself. Their hope was for a messiah, an anointed deliverer. “You who bring good new to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’ See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm.” (Isaiah 40:9-10).

Following the birth of his son, John the Baptist, Zechariah claimed the prophetic promises regarding a messiah as now being fulfilled. “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David … to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. … by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Luke 1: 68-69, 74-75, 78-79).

Jesus Christ, the promised messiah and deliverer, had come. He was not just a great teacher or martyr among other teachers and martyrs, he was uniquely different. He possessed a special relationship to God which others who came before did not and could not claim to possess.

And so, the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 4:4, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

And the Hebrew writer begins his letter with these words, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, … The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:1-3a).

Christmas means incarnation. Incarnation means the complete embodiment of God in a human being. As Christians, we strongly believe that God himself came in Jesus Christ, a human person who was also divine.

The story is told of a mother who told her child, “There is nothing to fear in the dark. And besides, the angels are near you.” And the child replied, “Mother, I don’t want angels. I want a skin face.”

The apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

We may not be able to fully understand how Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. But we can choose to believe that what mankind saw and experienced in that interlude of 33 years while on our earth, in our world, was God “made flesh.” The saw and experienced God with a skin face as companion, comforter, friend, liberator, and healer.

In his act of incarnation in Jesus, God is no longer remote, hidden, and inaccessible. He does not speak in some strange language to torment and frighten us. Instead, he speaks simply and lovingly in Jesus, making plain to all who are willing to listen, what are his will and purposes for us, and how we can enjoy a trusting, transforming relationship with himself as his children.

The message of Christmas is that the eternal, almighty, ever-loving God has come down into our world’s history clothed in the human flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. He has come as a visible, touchable expression of Himself. Yes, he has come and continues to come as Holy Spirit to dwell with His people and His church. Yes, he brings “Joy to the world, the Lord is come! let earth receive her king; let ev’ry heart prepare him room, and heav’n and nature sing.”

Who is coming to your house this Christmas? God incarnate in Jesus, Santa Claus, or your own crafted idol? Your preparations and activities will most likely expose the truth of your words.

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“Healing Rays of Righteousness” – December 9, 2020
http://www.geigler13.wordpress.com
Ray M. Geigley