All you need to know about God…

Have you ever been in a season of life when you were at your wits end and found yourself wondering, ‘Why doesn’t God make himself more clear?’ Or maybe you’re at your breaking point looking for direction and caught yourself wondering, ‘why doesn’t God just show himself and clear this up for me?’

There are a few challenges to that desire. First, in the Old Testament, when God even came near to his people, his intense, immediate presence was overwhelming, even dangerous.

And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Please show me your glory.”  And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.”  And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

~Exodus 33: 17-23

If you read that text carefully, you might pick up on the fact that God says that Moses cannot handle seeing his face. Even as he honors Moses’ request to see him, God knows that his full, unmediated presence would somehow destroy even the great Moses. So, in an act of deep patience and mercy, God lets Moses see what he can handle, his back. The King James translation says, ‘hindparts’. Yes, his rear end. Some have joked that this is the first recorded instance in a sacred text of someone being mooned. But I digress.

God’s unfiltered, unmediated presence is apparently so intense, so dangerous, that we, sinful, post-Fall humans can’t even handle it.

So what’s the solution?

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

~Galatians 4:4-6

In order to make it possible to truly experience God, God sent his only Son to us. This Son was born in the usual way. God came to us, in the flesh. And, in his good grace, made it so that one only has to know Jesus, God in the flesh, in order to know all that there is to know about God on this side of eternity. There is no longer any need to fear that there is something we’re missing about God, something that might make our life better, or something that might bring us closer to God. No, all we need to know is Jesus. And friends, that is good news.

Jesus makes himself as accessible as any close friend or brother could be. When Jesus declares in John 14 that he is the way, the truth, and the life. That no one comes to the Father except through him, he was making the path to God supremely simple and accessible, and easy. Following Jesus is certainly not simple or easy. Maturing into the fullness of Christ, our lifelong discipleship journey, is not for the faint of heart, but being connected to God, being saved, forgiven, and having assurance of salvation, is as simple as knowing Jesus.

All you need to know about God is found in Jesus.

So join me this Christmas Eve as Jesus’ body, the Church, gathers together to celebrate God in the flesh.

Merry Christmas!