Much of what I write about stems from things I’m reading or listening to, and this is no different. I’m reading a wonderful new book about prayer, called Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Staton (Check it out on Amazon).
This Advent season as we reflect on the name of Jesus we seem to hear most often this time of year but not all that much throughout the course of the rest of the year - Immanuel - we are faced with the reality that Jesus is God-in-a-body. Jesus took the distant idea of God and made it personal, accessible, approachable.
Consider the understanding the disciples would have had toward God…they would have know the Old Testament view of God - the God of power, plagues, and pursuit. The God who could rain down fire on the prophets of Baal, raise up a foreign nation to accomplish His will, or restore the fortunes of His people in incredible ways.
Tyler Staton writes about that in this way:
The big question in ancient days wasn’t “Does God exist?”… Instead, the existential question in ancient days was, “Is God knowable?” Because a pillar of fire doesn’t provoke doubt, but neither does it provide intimacy.
He went on to write:
These disciples knew a God of cleansing rituals and animal sacrifices, a God of ten plagues and blood on the doorpost, a God who parts seas and floods the earth, a God with a heavy hand of deliverance and a heavy hand of judgment—awesome in power but hard to get to know. Jesus did nothing to diminish the reverence, nothing to minimize the power of God. Jesus made that powerful God knowable.
That is what we see Jesus doing at the beginning of teaching His disciples how to pray… He begins with a personal reference to a knowable God - Our Father.
God wants to know you and He invites you to know Him. He doesn’t hide, run away, or sit in fear of your questions, doubts, concerns, uncertainties. He invites you to come in and experience Him. He invites you to try His way of life as revealed in the Scriptures and the life of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
The Church over the years has done a poor job of following the example of Jesus…making the powerful God knowable. Instead, we have often heaped up shame, disinvited and ostracized others, and passionately preached against things.
How can we follow the example of Jesus and make the powerful God knowable? How can we graciously and humbly enter into the lives of others to be the hands, the feet, and the mouthpiece of Jesus?
It seems that it is only as we personally know our powerful God that we are able to make our powerful God knowable to those around us. What better time to make our powerful God known to those around us than this time and season where we hear the name “God With Us” all around?