Christmas Presence

Mathew Block

by Mathew Block

The Christmas story as it appears in St. John’s Gospel is not the version with which we are most familiar. There are no mentions here of Mary and Joseph, no angels singing to shepherds in the fields, no baby being wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

Instead, St. John begins his account of Christmas from a much larger perspective, focusing not on the historical specifics of the birth of Jesus but rather who Jesus is and what He has come to accomplish. “In the beginning was the Word,” we read, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This Word—this Jesus—is God, St. John tells us in no uncertain terms. He is the Creator of all things, and thus infinitely above us.

But He doesn’t stay far off. No, He steps down to dwell among us (1:14). He takes upon Himself our flesh and is made man; the Light of God deigns to enter into our darkness (1:8).

Why? To bring you, through Himself, into the presence of God. “No one has ever seen God,” St. John writes, but “the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known” (John 1:18). The Son of God comes that we might know God—and in knowing Him find life.

The English Standard Version’s translation here is unfortunately anemic; the phrase “at the Father’s side” fails to capture the intimacy of Jesus’ relationship with the Father. The King James Version (and several others) render this better as “in the bosom of the Father.” The picture is one of Jesus pressed to the breast of His Father—an embrace of deep and familiar love.

It is just this sort of relationship that the Son of God has come to make possible for sinful humanity—a gift received by faith in Him. “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God,” St. John writes (1:12). Everyone who trusts in Christ becomes, like Him, a child of God. And just as the Son of God is embraced by His Father—caught up to His breast in an embrace of love—so too we who have become children of God are caught up into the Father’s heart.

Just as the Son of God is embraced by His Father—caught up to His breast in an embrace of love—so too we who have become children of God are caught up into the Father’s heart.

Time and again throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus makes it clear that He has come to invite us into this new relationship—to be the conduit through which we come to know God and His love aright. “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me,” Jesus says. “Not that anyone has seen the Father except He who is from God; He has seen the Father” (6:45-46). And again: “Whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And whoever sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (12:44-45). Through relationship with Christ, then, we are brought into the presence of God. We look up into His face to find it brimming over with love.

We see the depths of that love vividly at Golgotha three decades after the birth of Christ. There the great God of all creation debases Himself for us. He lays not in the lowliness of a manger but rather upon the cruel wood of a cross. He bears not merely the lowliness of mortal flesh but rather also the sins of the entire world. He is crucified. The light shining in the darkness gives one last flash—“It is finished!”—and the flame seems to flicker out.

But the presence of God has not departed. Three days later, Christ rises from the dead, the Son of God still bearing the flesh and blood He first took up in the Incarnation. And through His glorious resurrection, He assures us of life eternal in Him—life forever in the presence of the God who is Love.

“Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more,” Jesus explained to the disciples in advance of His Passion; “But,” He promises, “you will see Me” (14:19). Christ’s death would not spell the end of humanity’s new connection to God. Instead, it would be the very thing which makes that relationship possible at all. “Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (14:19-20).

“You in Me, and I in you.” These are beautiful words. Through faith in Christ, we are truly “in Him” and He is “in us.” And if we are in Him, then wherever He is we are there also. The Son of God, embraced to the bosom of His Father, takes us with Him and places us there also upon the heart of God. Because you are in Christ, God is ever near to you in love and in mercy.

The Son of God, embraced to the bosom of His Father, takes us with Him and places us there also upon the heart of God. Because you are in Christ, God is ever near to you in love and in mercy.

May the presence of God grant you great peace this Christmas season, as we celebrate the coming of Christ in the Incarnation and look forward in hope to His return. For He has promised us: “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (14:2-3).

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Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran and communications manager for the International Lutheran Council.

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