Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14)
What does God look like? How would you recognize God if or when God showed up?
The image of God has been depicted in many ways over centuries. It was foretold even before his arrival. It is no doubt a point of controversy and so diverse among people that you may even ask yourself what does it matter? What the historians say or great works of art may depict may or may not matter but in this first chapter the author makes the very important point that how each of us picture God does in fact matter very much. It may very well shape our expectations of how God will present Himself in our lives.
When you pray what is your mental picture of God?
Are we looking for a savior with high ranking power ready to change things as we ask or a presence who is with us no matter the circumstances, even' in poverty, pain and suffering'? There are a number of good comparisons in this chapter. My favorite is Santa Claus - Jesus.
Who is Jesus? Not what most expected, claims the author,"He arrives on the scene not in strength but in weakness. He was born a Palestinian Jew, into a community of marginalized, oppressed people... He lived in tension with the organized religious system. He resisted the world's obsessions with wealth, pleasure, power and recognition. He identified with the weak and powerless, the widowed and orphaned. He did not condemn but defend sinners."
We all know the image of Santa; magical, loving, gift giving. Many of us were also taught that dilemma of naughty or nice and how is it that you end up on Santa's List. The author compares our popular image of Santa Claus to the way we may have 'reduced God to a mythical watchdog who judges our niceness or naughtiness and metes out rewards or punishments accordingly.' This is a stark way to put it but the thought may ring true for some of us. I can personally say that growing up Catholic that is exactly the way I thought and that if you messed up, even when you didn't mean to, confession was the way to fix it. My depth and scope of the image of God has greatly changed over recent years.
So the question then comes back to the first; where might you be in the spectrum or is your image something all together different? Does it shift with time or situation? The rest of the chapter is spent recognizing that if we subscribe to the magical gift giver version of God that it may have significant impact on our expectations and again on the outcome. Yet if we subscribe to the image of Jesus we can see that a seemly normal, possibly even outnumbered and disadvantaged human being can make miracles happen. He proposes that if we step back that we will be reminded that God came to this world to bring miracle to the brokenness and that is where the transformation takes place. That the miracle of Christmas is His coming; Jesus. There is much more to talk about here but I'll leave you with one last quote to think about:
"Christmas is the celebration of a miracle, but we've edged the miracle worker out of his own birthday."
Once you've given it some thought I believe there is a call to action. What will you, yourself be this Christmas more like Santa or Jesus or does the answer lie somewhere in between?
Peace & Prayers,
Elaine
Questions from Chapter One:
1. How do you picture God? Does his image have more in common with Santa Claus or Jesus?
2. Think about your family traditions. How many of them focus on comfort and pleasure? What new traditions can you add to focus more on presence and presents?
3. What ideas do you have for a mission miracle? What groups are you connected to or who are some of the people that could help make it happen?
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