Come, Lord Jesus. Â Come.
Our plea for God to come reflects our anxiety over the brokenness of the world. It’s an expression of our wanting desire for the culmination of redemptive history in the Messiah. Come, Lord Jesus, come to rescue us. Come to heal us. Restore sight to the blind. Declare the epoch of the Lord’s favor. Set the world aright through your Kingdom here on earth. We wait. Patiently we wait for him.
And then we celebrate the Light of the world who did indeed come…The night, though, was silent. There were no horses. No chariots. Only quietude in a manger. There were lowly shepherds in the distance who knew first. Wise men were on their long journey, following the star, but it would be weeks before the gold and incense and myrrh arrived. There were no gifts or trumpets sounding that night. No fireworks. The King had slipped into the world to be with us. Quietly and humbly. There was no bursting forth on the world’s stage.
At Christmas, we celebrate the arrival of our humble King.
To walk alongside us, as close as burrowing under skin.
God. With. Us…three words that should not be able to merge together into one coherent sentence. But they do in Christ. We look our King in the face. He is there. Present. Sent to be present, to know every suffering of humanity so that he could bear the suffering, one day. God is with us in Christ Jesus the Messiah who came to deliver us.
God is indeed with us in Christ Jesus born this day in Bethlehem. He is with us. As we go out into the world we carry the very presence of God with us.
