Isaiah 7.14 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a
sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His
name Immanuel. NASB
It wasn’t always so: the notion that God is somewhere
far, far away. He’s always near; always been so. Abraham knew God and seemed to
know God was near. God seemed to take up a large place in Abraham’s mind. Adam,
himself, seemed to know God was close by. I’m thinking that the God-far-away thing is more recent in
human history. I think it’s even more so in the Information Age. There is very little
that is mystique anymore.
There is no more mystery – no more mystique. We’ve
explored just about every subject there is in our quest to know more and in all
of our questing, I think we’ve forgotten that there are some things that are
not to be questioned and some things that are to be accepted by faith.
Today, with so much information it seems we have an
agenda (by those who claim to know) that there is a better way for mankind to
live. If mankind only knew better, he’d
be better – is the common assumption. But where this assumption falls apart
is the man’s lack of power to do what his fallen nature drives him to do. We’ve
seen it over and again, some brainiac pulls some kind of stunt we’d assess only
to a maniac. We’ve seen leadership officials do the dumbest things for the
dumbest reasons; and why: because they haven’t the power to resist dumb-idity.
If there was ever a reason for us to need God it’s this: we humans do dumb things. We’re so dumb
that we give each other presents to celebrate Someone else’s birthday! How
weird! (Thank you Pastor Brad.) We do dumb things like disobey God and do so
with dumb disregard for dire and deadly consequences. We’re too dumb to understand
that every action causes a reaction – and we’re supposed to be the smartest
creatures on the planet. I think what we really excel at is deceit, cleverness,
and scheming. We excel at fooling one another because it takes a dummy to know
a dummy and Barnum wasn’t too far off when he said, “…there’s one born every
minute.”
If ever we needed a God it is now and you can apply that
to any point in human history – there isn’t a time when it was better or worse:
only dumb and dumber. Jesus came to save us from our worst enemy: ourselves.
Jesus came to this earth through childbirth. Jesus came to this earth with an
ancient moniker attached: Immanuel; God
with us. If there is ever any hope for us dummies, it’s Him. If there is
ever anyone to save us from stupidity, it’s Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.
Christmas comes and goes with all its accompanying tomfoolery.
One season is like the last only it perpetuates the myth that God is somewhere
else but not with us. And there are trees and presents, and manger scenes and
songs, but Christmas – the Advent – is the resurrection of the ancient plan in
the minds and hearts of men that only with God in our midst are we saved from
ourselves.
Today, Christmas 2012, it has come about that God desires
to be in our midst; will we accept Him up close and personal or perpetuate the
myth that He is busy, off somewhere else?
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