All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:22-23
All of my life I wanted the honor of intimacy: the honor of someone simply wanting to be with me and know me, for the simple joy of experiencing me, and for this reason only. Like when someone calls you just to say he is thinking of you. When someone writes you only because she misses you.
No other reason.
No other motivation.
The simple joy of connection.
What I value most about Christmas is God's gift of intimacy to me.
In a prophecy about the coming of Jesus, God shows His motivation towards us: To be with us. That is how Jesus was introduced: As God with us. We see this with God walking in the Garden of Eden with the first man and woman. We see God living with the nation of Israel. We see the new promise of God to be with, in, and among His people in the words of the prophets Jeremiah and Joel. In the consummation of all time, and the beginning of the new age, we read these words:
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God." Revelation 21:1-3 NIV (Emphasis mine)
In fact, it seems as though the very reason God gave us bodies was for His Spirit to live inside of them, as it is written:
“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
I Corinthians 6:13, 19-20
I appreciate Jesus coming to the earth to be with us, and giving us His Spirit to live inside of us always. This gives me happiness because it erases my loneliness. When away from my beloved family, at a job where it is only me and those who may see me as an enemy, I have God with me, in me, loving me.
This is Christmas.
This is Jesus, God's gift to us: To always be with us and in us.
In this God does for me what I value most: He communicates His desire to simply be with me because He enjoys me.
I supremely enjoy Him as well. I live for the simple enjoyment of being with Him.
This is really good. A truth that I want to experience more and more each day.
ReplyDeleteOne minor point of translation worth mentioning (though it doesn't affect your overall message) is the Corinthians passage. I believe the quotation is extended all the way to "God will destroy them both":
“Food for the stomach and the stomach for food—but God will destroy them both."
I think it's more likely that this was the slogan among the Corinthians that Paul was countering. They had been influenced by a dualism that taught that it doesn't matter what we do with our bodies (whether food or sex) because they are part of the inferior physical world and won't remain in the eternal, ethereal, 'spiritual' world of platonic ideals.
But Paul is explicitly countering this false slogan among the Corinthians Christians by pointing out that it DOES matter what we do with our bodies because they are NOT inferior to the 'real' or 'true', nor are they a temporary nuisance that we will one day be 'free' from.
So it actually strengthens the point you're making in this post when the passage is translated in this manner. God desires intimacy with human beings, not disembodied spirits.
Thank you JM, for reading, commenting, and strengthening the point I'm making. God desires real intimacy, spiritually and physically, to really be with us, to bodily be with us. That's my point in terms of Jesus coming, God incarnate, God in a body. It is also my point in the Spirit's real presence inside our real bodies right now.
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