To Dwell Again

I was idly listening to a couple of entertainers on talk radio this afternoon as I drove home from church.  One of them was telling (true or not...) of a lady who had been a vegetarian for most of her life. Then, one day, she decided while at a coffee house, to try a turkey sandwich.  Now, she's enjoying BBQ!  She said that after one taste of that turkey sandwich, she just can't get enough!

That's the way it is for me with the study of the Word of God.  I have been severely deprived of my Bible study these past few days, due to a home/family project of large magnitude.  As a result, I am starving!

So, here we are, on the first Sunday of Advent which, this year, also happens to be the first day of Advent!  As a Baptist, we don't celebrate Advent the way the more "high church" denominations do; and, I think that's a shame, really.  So, since I love my particular denomination, I just choose to add Advent celebration on in my personal study.  Since beginning this blog, I have used two different Advent devotionals the past two Advents.  The first was from John Piper's "Solid Joys", and the last one was from Ann Voskamp's Advent study: "The Greatest Gift".  Both added a wonderful flavor to meditations on this sacred season.

This year, here in the blog (because in my personal devos) we will be hearing from A.W. Tozer, an early-to-mid-20th century theologian.  Not a Baptist, Tozer was a pastor in a denomination called the Christian and Missionary Alliance (the C&MA).  He wrote several books, including the famous "The Pursuit of God".

Today's Advent meditation concerns God's interactions with mankind, from the time of Adam and Eve until Jesus' birth.  In the Garden of Eden Genesis 3:8 tells us God walked through the Garden. Clearly, He regularly communed with Adam and Eve there freely, in their sinless states before The Fall. After their catastrophic, cataclysmic choice to believe Satan rather than God, everything changed.  God, for thousands of years, no longer "dwelt among", that is lived among, mankind.  It was not until the birth of Jesus our Savior that God once again was for a prolonged time "with us". "And His name shall be called Immanuel, 'God with us'." (Matthew 1:23)  The gospel writers were adamant about this point.  John too, in his gospel, drove the point home:  "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us..."(John 1:14)

In the intervening years, from The Fall to The Incarnation, God appeared to men from time to time. He manifested Himself as various natural phenomena, such as a recurring, guiding cloud or a column of fire (the Shekinah Glory.)  At other times, He took on the form of man briefly (appearing to Abraham and to Moses, to Gideon, Daniel, Jacob and others).

But, when He put on flesh and revealed Himself as The Son, He came to abide with us, to dwell with us forever.  The Son has declared the Father, the Scriptures say in John 1:18.  In the Person of God the Son, Jesus makes manifest all the fullness of God the Father, whom no man has actually seen. We would be unable to bear such radiant majesty and glory.  We so lack the capacity to absorb His greatness that to actually see the Father would utterly destroy us.

"And we beheld His glory...." (John 1:14b)

When the first century folks saw Jesus with their physical eyes, they were looking at God, though very few realized it.  When we 21st century people "see" Jesus with eyes of the spirit, it is being revealed to us then all there is for us humans to know of God.  Jesus gives us as much of God the Father as we can tolerate in our humanness. And, Jesus does this miracle now through the Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit.

Yes, today, when we embrace God through the Person of His Son, when we worship Him with the offering of our lives, we are given the Holy Spirit to dwell with us forever.  He seals us as God's own, never more to be separated.  Physical death cannot then separate us from the love of God.  In fact, nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38). Nothing has that power. The Holy Spirit marks us permanently, like with a Sharpie permanent marker.  (If you've ever tried to get Sharpie ink off a surface or out of a fabric you can appreciate the analogy!) Even stronger, greater and more final than a Sharpie is the seal of the Holy Spirit on the soul of the believer in Jesus Christ.

He dwells with us who are His, and we will dwell with Him forever.

Immanuel

18Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph, her husband to be, was a righteous man, and because he did not want to disgrace her, he intended to divorce her privately. 20When he had contemplated this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22This all happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled: 23“Look! The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel,” which means “God with us.” 24When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, 25but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NET)

Do you remember when you found out you were going to be a parent?  I remember that pregnancy test home kit, and seeing the blue check mark.  But, most of all, I remember my husband's reaction. Basically, he was so overwhelmed with emotion at the prospect he was "zombie-fied" for about 3 days.  I imagine that is how Joseph must have felt:  a carpenter who dreamed of the birth of God.1

Today, Christians talk about Jesus' return, and we say we believe this to be a certainty.  I'm sure that the Jews of Mary and Joseph's day felt the same about the coming of Messiah.  But, I'm equally sure they felt that "someone else" would be chosen to be His earthly parents.  What a shock this must have been!

The mystery of the Incarnation.  I can't wrap my mind around it.  A friend of mine wrote a Christmas song in which she tried to express the unfathomable fact that Mary gave birth to the One who had created her, who had known her before her own birth.  "We Have Met Before" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u568DbaOyZc

"Newborn Son, yet Ancient of All Days"...

God the Father gives to us God the Son.  This is the essence of Christmas:  God gives us the only path to soul salvation, His very own Beloved One, His Only Begotten.

Do you have a favorite Christmas tree ornament?  I do.  It is the subject of the picture at the top of today's post.  It is not a particularly beautiful ornament, in the aesthetic sense.  In fact, it looks out-of-place, nestled in the "front and center" of our tree.  But, it is there to remind me that Christmas was only the beginning of Jesus's earthly ministry. If He had only been born and then had lived a life marked by sinful choices, or if He had refused to fulfill His purpose here, there would be no spike ornament on my tree, nor would there be any reason for a Christmas celebration at all.

God With Us...Immanuel.  You can't take the Babe without the Broken and Suffering.  You can't worship the Newborn without embracing the Triumphant King.  There is no worship of Jesus apart from embracing His finished work on the cross and His earth-shattering emergence from the borrowed tomb.  He loved us ... to death, and back again.

Even after He returned to Heaven, to sit at the right hand of our Father God, He did not leave us comfortless.  Through His Holy Spirit, God is still with us, with those of us who have believed and confessed, "I am His and He is mine."

As he lay dying, the renowned 18th c. Methodist evangelist John Wesley is said to have uttered these words:  "The best of all is, God is with us."

Amen and amen.

Thanks be to God, for His indescribable Gift!  2 Corinthians 9:15

Source:

1 Voskamp, Ann. The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas.