God Is With Us Again... And Still

by Rev. Robin Sandbothe

The Word became flesh and blood,
    and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
    the one-of-a-kind glory,
    like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
    true from start to finish. –John 1:14 (The Message)

It happens every year. We begin Advent anticipating the Christ-child’s arrival. We wait. We decorate our homes and our sanctuary with symbols that remind us of what is to come. We wait. We sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. We wait. We light candles every week and watch as each of them burns lower and lower. We wait. We pray about the coming of hope, of peace, of joy, of love. We wait.

Then, finally, Christmas Eve arrives and the nativity scene is complete with baby Jesus in the manger. We finally sing Christmas carols and hear the Christmas story. We turn all the lights off in the sanctuary (or this year at home while we meet by Zoom) and light our candles and hold them as we sing Silent Night. It is solemn and joyous at the same time.

God is with us!

And yet, God has been with us all along. It’s a paradox. Don’t think about it too much or it will make your head hurt. Just rejoice that even as we anticipate Christ’s coming every Advent, he’s already in our midst. The Word has become flesh and moved into the neighborhood, as it says in the Message version of John’s gospel.

God is with us

in the midst of a pandemic

God is with us

in the midst of a controversial election

God is with us

in the midst of coming to terms with systemic racism

God is with us

in the midst of a climate crisis

God is with us

In the midst of a COVID-19 diagnosis

God is with us

In the midst of surviving a cancer diagnosis

God is with us

In the midst of serving our communities

God is with us

In the midst of Zoom and Facebook and YouTube and socially distanced worship

God is with us

In the midst of the best and the worst of life

God is with us

God is with us

God is with us

God.is.with.us. Amen!