“What if God was one of us?”

This question was asked by rock singer Joan Osborn a few years ago in her hit song. Whether she knew what she was singing or not, the essence of the Christmas message is exactly that. As Matthew explains:

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'” Matthew 1:21-23

The Involved God

It is all too easy to fall into the view that God is outside of our world, sitting in some undisclosed location beyond space and time, just waiting to come rushing in when the need arises. The incarnation is often viewed this way, as if God was removed from the universe and just popped in for a visit two thousand years ago.

But, the Scriptures give us a very different picture. God is with us – present, involved, immersed in the universe God has made and the creatures that inhabit it. And this “with-us-ness” is not a new thing. It has been true from all eternity – as Paul makes clear (see Ephesians 1:4).

The Church Calendar – and the worship that is guided by it – is designed to remind us of God's “with-us-ness”. As we celebrate the Christ-Child, we learn again that God is, and always has been, completely present to us – whatever we may have to endure. So, it is crucial at this time, that our prayers and songs lead us away from the idea that God is separate from us and back to the truth of Christmas - “God is with us”.

The Embodied God

But, the Gospel message goes even further than this. God “with us” is also “one of us”. God has chosen to be embodied in flesh, to share with us all that makes us human, to carry our nature in God's own being. What an amazing gift of dignity and grace this is. What a challenge to value our flesh as God does – not as something to ignore or deny, but to embrace, and to use as a way to connect with God and to reflect God's character and purpose.

Our worship enables us to do this work, too. In the Sacrament of Communion, the act of using our bodies to eat and drink becomes a doorway to encounter God. In the Christmas celebration, we are invited to imagine ourselves in a physical place, kneeling in our bodies before an embodied God. And, as we celebrate incarnation, we are reminded that we too are “temples of God's Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians .3:16 & 6:19), and we are called to respect and honour our own bodies and those of others around us.

Living Christmas

In a world where domestic violence, rape, AIDS, cancer, and poverty tempt us to deny the humanness of others and despise our own flesh, we need to hear the Christmas message again. We need to be reminded that God is with us in our struggle, and that God loves us – including our flesh – enough to become one of us.

Joy to the world! God – with us and one of us - has come!