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Are you my child?
by John McAlister
Deck: If we truly are God’s children,
let’s resemble him in our thoughts, words and actions
A young girl hides in her room. Frightened and vulnerable, she
sits with her back against the door, knees tucked against her
chest, her head down. You know that she is scared and
helpless. You want to help, to rescue her. But how do you
reach out to this frightened girl without terrifying her?
If you knock at her door, she will cower in fear, moving
farther away from the door, perhaps even hiding under her bed.
How does she know that you come in peace?
If you break down her door or appear at the window, she will
think that you have come to attack her. She will look at you
with eyes full of horror, perhaps even screaming at you to
leave her alone.
If you decide to simply call out to her, she will cover her
ears and curl up more tightly inside herself.
Walter Wangerin asks us to imagine this girl as the human
race. How does the heavenly Father reach out to her? Through
what door can he enter to take her fear and loneliness away?
And to do so in a way that does not evoke terror, but rather
his utmost love and compassion?
We live in a broken world. All you have to do to realize that
is to open a newspaper or turn on the news on your television.
All you have to do is walk through the community in which you
live. Fear surrounds us – fear of violence, abuse, loneliness,
failure, helplessness.
But we say to this fear, “God is good.” We speak of a God who
has a wonderful plan to give us hope and a future. And that’s
a wonderful message. But who is this God to the people around
us? If they believe in him at all, is he not yet another thing
to be afraid of.
To believe in God, to believe that he created the world, to
believe that he is above us in the heavens looking down on us,
means that we also believe that he is all-powerful. He is seen
as the Supreme Being – remote, yet determining our destinies;
distant from the confusion and anguish of our daily lives, but
still possessing power and authority over us. And to many
people that is a scary thought.
In The New Rulers of the World, Australian news correspondent
John Pilger reflects on one of his experiences in Vietnam:
In patty fields not far from Saigon, I watched three ladders
curve in the sky. And as each rung reached the ground there
was a plume of fire. And a sound that welled as thunder over
deep valleys, rippling and erupting rather than exploding.
These were bombs of three B-52s flying in formation, unseen
above the clouds. Between them they dropped about 70 tons of
explosives in what was known as a long box pattern, the
military term for carpet bombing – everything inside a box is
presumed destroyed. When I reached a village within the box,
the street had been replaced by a crater. People a hundred
yards from the point of contact left not even their scorched
shadows, which the dead at Hiroshima had left. There were
pieces of limbs and the intact bodies of children thrown into
the air by the blast. Their skin had folded back like
parchment. Strange anxieties clouded the mind. I was worried
that I might step on somebody and disturb the dying. But they
were all dead. It was experiences such as this that has led me
to question power imposed from a distance. Not just by those
above the clouds but by impeccable far-away figures who order
the mass killing of people, and by those who justify their
crimes by representing the victims as terrorists or merely as
numbers without names, faces and histories. Or as the
inevitable casualties of a superior morality.
Power imposed from a distance. Governments, employers and
corporations all make decisions that affect our lives. Just
last week, a major automobile manufacturer decided to close
down an award-winning factory in Ontario, leaving thousands of
people without work. Why did they do this? I think you know
the answer. How could they do this? Much more difficult to
answer. Think about the native village in Kashechewan, where
residents have been exposed to dangerous water conditions for
years because their physical location was easier for the
government to ship goods to.
Most of us will never see these powerful people face-to-face.
We will never understand their motives or what causes them to
make their decisions. And yet this is true in many of our
relationships as well. I asked some children yesterday what
they would like to pray for: two asked for prayer for their
father, because they haven’t seen him in four months and they
don’t know why. Another child I know has a father who won’t
speak to him – the father calls and speaks to his sister, but
refuses to talk to the son.
We are vulnerable creatures. We hurt easily and we become
distrustful. We curl up inside ourselves, close the door and
create a barrier of protection. But in so doing, we turn our
backs to the One Being who sincerely loves us and wants to
support us. And so when he calls to us, we do not listen. When
he knocks, we do not answer.
So what does God do? He enters the room through another door.
God does not want to be distant from us. He doesn’t want to be
perceived as power imposed from a distance. He wants us to
know him and to love him. And so rather than breaking down the
door, he enters the world through Mary, a young girl. And in
so doing, he gives us the time to prepare for him gradually:
to feel him waking in the womb, to touch the growing tummy and
see the promise growing greater every day. So that when he
comes, his voice will not be loud and terrible, but soft and
tender.
Jesus, God’s Son, was born into a world of conflict and terror
and fear. His mother, Mary, could have been rejected by
Joseph, her fiancé, as she was expecting a child that was not
his. Joseph chose to stand with her, to support her, which
went firmly against the grain of society at that time. Today,
we do not bat an eye at single mothers, but in those days eyes
would be batted and rocks would be thrown. Joseph didn’t just
save Mary and the child from rejection, he saved them from
death.
And speaking of “power imposed from a distance,” the Roman
Empire, as it became during Caesar Augustus’ reign, ordered
all people to return to their hometowns to register for a
census. So Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem, Joseph’s
hometown, as was ordered by the government. It was probably a
three-day trip – and not by bus, train or plane with padded
seats and free peanuts – so it must have been difficult for
Mary, who was pregnant. While in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to
Jesus and placed him in a manger as there were no rooms
available for them.
Now, a manger is a feeding trough for animals, which implies
that they were staying in a stable or in a cave used to keep
animals. And where animals eat, they poop. I am not a fan of
poop. The other day my wife, Rochelle, came home with a whole
lot of it stuck to her shoe. She spent an hour cleaning it off
(well, she started to gag after a while so I had to finish off
the cleaning), and even though there were no visible signs of
the poop left on her shoe, it still smelled for days
afterward. And so did our apartment where she cleaned it up.
Even if the stable or manger was cleaned up, it still has a
vulgar association to it. What a place for God’s only Son to
be born.
So let’s summarize where we are in the story so far: God, the
creator of heaven and earth, wants to reach out to his people
and decides to come to earth. So through his Holy Spirit, he
is born as his Son, Jesus, in a manger in a stable.
God becomes flesh and lives and walks and has his being among
us. Now, let’s be very clear about this. Jesus wasn’t just a
good man whom God adopted as his son. He wasn’t just a person
who understood God well and could teach people about him. He
wasn’t just a person who was willing to die for his beliefs
and so offer us a poignant example of service. Jesus was and
is God. Our God is a triune God. He is God in relationship
with himself. He is a God who is the Father, who is the Son,
who is the Holy Spirit. You cannot separate them – they are
indivisible – and they are co-equal in power and glory. So
when we talk about God’s Son being born to Mary, we are
speaking about God himself being born in flesh. Isn’t that a
powerful thought: God, the Supreme Being as some people think
of him, up in heaven, doesn’t just send a servant to rescue
his people, he sends himself.
Now, what can we learn about God’s character when we look at
how he was born? He chose to identify with the weakest of us.
He wasn’t born to the family of Caesar Augustus, he wasn’t
born to the family of King Herod, the ruler of Judea, he
wasn’t born to the family of the High Priest in Jerusalem. He
was born to a simple family who could only afford to place him
in a manger in a stable. And then, who were the first people
to hear the exciting news of Jesus’ birth? Lowly shepherds
keeping watch over their flocks by night. And they were also
the first visitors to greet Jesus and congratulate his
parents. When we look at the Gospel of Matthew, we also learn
that Jesus’ parents had to smuggle him away to Egypt as King
Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus’ first few years of life were
spent as a refugee. Then, after Herod’s death, he returned as
a child with his family to Nazareth, a small, insignificant
town.
You see, God didn’t come to earth to experience an easy life.
He came to understand us, to identify with our pain and
suffering and hardship. He came to bridge the distance that
separates us from him. Through the example of his son, he
reveals to us his heart and character, to minister to us and
to teach us how to live in purity and truth. And also, through
his suffering and death and resurrection, to make it possible
for each one of us to approach him face-to-face in love and
familiarity. So that when we think about God, we never
perceive him as “power imposed from a distance,” but as a
Father we willingly and lovingly choose to follow, trust and
obey.
Jesus points us towards his Father. Through the biblical
accounts of his life we can learn how to love and serve God.
But other than one reference to Jesus as a child, the Gospels
only highlight the three years of his adult ministry –
traditionally believed to be from age 30 to his death at 33.
So we don’t know much detail about his life before then.
Charles de Foucauld, a priest who was killed while serving in
North Africa, calls this the “hidden life of Jesus.” And while
nothing is referenced in the gospels about this period of
time, from what we do know we can assume a few basic aspects
of his life: he must have spent much time in prayer with God
his father, he must have spent much time reading the
scriptures and praying the psalms, he must have lived simply
in humble obscurity. Imagine our world if more people spent
their early years with such a foundation. Imagine our world if
more Christians spent their early years with such a firm
foundation.
Then in the gospels, we encounter the adult Jesus, the Son of
God, walking and talking and touching the outcasts, the sick,
the lame, the prostitutes, the poor, those who lived and
breathed fear and helplessness. And he healed the sick, he
restored the broken, he befriended the lonely and forgave the
unforgivable.
And he came as a servant, born in human likeness. This is the
incarnation. God became flesh and moved into our
neighbourhood. And then he died to save us. He took on all of
our sin, all of our infirmities, all of our suffering, and was
broken on a cross so that we might become whole. Three days
later, he defeated death and rose again. And then, after
spending 40 days with his followers, he ascended to his Father
in heaven.
But his ministry wasn’t over. The incarnation was not
finished. The incarnation is not finished. He gave us his
Spirit, to fill us and empower us to preach Good News to the
poor. Jesus’ ministry continues. When we allow him to work
through us, he continues to heal the sick, to comfort the
lonely, to free the oppressed. We are his hands to a hurting,
suffering world.
Last Christmas, my wife’s family and I visited a seniors’
residence to sing carols and bring some holiday cheer.
However, if you’ve ever heard me sing before, you’ll know that
I was primarily responsible for holding doors and pushing
elevator buttons.
We went to nearly every floor and sang, joked and prayed with
many beautiful people. Some were bedridden and unable to spend
the day with their families. Others seemed to be alone in the
world—or, sadly, forgotten.
While walking down a hallway, I saw a woman staring at me
through a partially open doorway. I smiled and wished her a
merry Christmas. “Are you my son?” she asked.
“Pardon me?” I replied.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, she said: “Oh, you
look the spitting image of my son. It’s uncanny. I thought he
had come to visit me. I haven’t seen him in over a year and a
half.”
“Does he live far away?” I asked.
“He lives in Brampton,” she replied.
I quickly calculated the distance in my head—a 30-minute drive
from the residence. I wondered if she’d been looking for her
son’s face all day.
It’s sad. Now, there may be a perfectly rational explanation
for the son’s absence. But there were a lot of lonely people
in that residence. Who is visiting them? Who is befriending
them?
At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. In this
small Child, born in a manger, we catch a glimpse of our
loving God who chose to come to Earth and share life with us.
As the Christ Child became a man, he revealed the heart of God
as he befriended the lonely, the lost and the hurting.
Jesus wants us to continue his ministry: “I was hungry and you
fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless
and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me
clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison
and you came to me … I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever
you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored,
that was me—you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35-36,40 The
Message).
This Christmas season, let’s not forget about those with whom
Jesus identifies: the sick, the homeless, the elderly, the
prisoner, the poor. When we reach out to them, we are serving
Christ. If we truly are God’s children, let’s resemble him in
our thoughts, words and actions. And may none of us ever have
to hear him say: “Are you my child?”
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