God With Us: Where, Exactly?

Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

The backdrop of the Christmas story is despair. The few hundred years before Jesus was born was considered to be a time when God was silent. No new words from God spoken through prophets were being announced or published. The state of Israel suggested that God had left the building: foreign oppressors ruled over them in their own land, and their Temple was in ruins until a bit before Jesus was born. Even then, the Jewish tradition was tolerated more than celebrated. The recitation of psalms and prayers and sacrifices seemed to fall flat, words of exasperation falling on deaf ears.

And yet it was a time when the desperation of people was rising to fever pitch. Some thought that God would act like God again (think Moses and the Exodus) if the people themselves would just show some faith and follow a leader courageous enough to sound a rallying cry. Many did rise, faith-claiming the role of messiah, the anointed one of God who would be God’s agent to bring about the restoration they hoped for. One by one those wannabe messiahs met their death at the hands of Rome.

There was unrest. There was despair. There was crying out to God. There was silence. Where was God?

Part of the brilliance of the stories surrounding Jesus’ birth are the inclusion of God showing up in surprising ways. An old, childless couple long past child-bearing years is told that they could expect a bun in the oven very soon, and they were to name the child John. In good male fashion, Zechariah offered solid “mansplaining” to the angel Gabriel, suggesting that this would be impossible due to their old age, and also that the kid would be named Zechariah, Jr.. Gabriel then did to Zechariah what women everywhere across all time have longed to do: he hit the mute button on Zech. Nine months of peace and quiet surely helped Elizabeth enjoy her pregnancy! Everybody wondered if God was up to something with them, and their suspicions were realized when, after the baby was born, Elizabeth named him John (to the shock of all), only to have Zechariah confirm it (at which point the mute button was turned off). God was not distant, inactive, or silent. God showed up.

The birth narrative of Jesus is also incredible. Instead of a highly respected elderly couple unexpectedly becoming new parents, the story of Jesus’ beginning starts from the other end of the spectrum. Mary and Joseph are dirt poor. They are engaged – likely a marriage arranged for some time – but aren’t together yet until Joseph can provide for her. That could take a while since Joseph is a carpenter – not a high paying job, not much respect. Their engagement was legally binding even if they weren’t allowed to consummate the marriage. This is where the scandal comes in. Mary is visited by Gabriel and told that she is going to get pregnant via the Holy Spirit – that her coming pregnancy would be anointed by God somehow – and that the child she would bear would be the messiah of God. She visits her relative Elizabeth – now six months pregnant – and Elizabeth confirms that Mary must be telling the truth since baby John did a lot of kicking as soon as Mary showed up. Or was it the spicy tacos she just ate? Of course, getting pregnant out of wedlock – and not from your fiancé – is generally not ideal and caused a lot of problems with Joseph, their families, and their neighbors. Who would believe such a thing? One thing Mary (and eventually Joseph) learned was that God was not distant, but near. God was not silent but speaking. God was not inactive, but deeply involved.

The night of Jesus’ birth, another set of undervalued people received a heavenly birth announcement. Sometime later, astrologers from a distant land noticed a star that communicated to them that a new king was born and made the very long journey to pay homage. The graveyard-shift shepherds under the stars that night found out that God was very much present – and with a massive heavenly host that could sing harmony – and that this God valued them despite their lowly state. The astronomers discovered that God spanned vast distances of geography and was also willing to speak another religious language to communicate to them. Not long after Jesus was born, more stories all along the same theme emerge – God is with us, right here, right now.

If you have ever been in a place of despair, certain that God is not present, this comes as very comforting news. Or not. After all, God showed up for these few people while who knows how many people were still in the dark where all the anxiety gets stoked. Perhaps there is more we need to consider.

From what we have learned from the writings of antiquity around the time Jesus was born, the dominant theological framework revolved around theism, where God (or the gods) ruled the earth “down here” from the heavens “up there.” There were certainly variations and nuances and different interpretations about what this all meant, but most people looked at the world through this faith lens. The Jewish people believed God was very powerful, yet apparently not always willing to lend a hand. Most of the time, when there was hardship, the assumption was that humanity had done something to offend God, explaining God’s lack of concern, which had to be appeased before God would act. Lots of animals and a few people were sacrificed to that end. Sound a little silly? Yep. Primitive, even? Yes. And yet many people still hold the same view today even if we don’t think about sacrificing sheep or cows or people anymore. Perhaps there is another way to think about God that makes more sense...

The opposite of theism (where God is separate from creation) is pantheism (where everything is God). In this view, I’m God, the trees are God, the rocks are God, the mailbox, the dog , the squirrels, everything (except cats – there’s no way cats are gods even though they act like they are). Some folks resonate with this, but it tends to dilute God so much that God becomes so commonplace as to become irrelevant. The Jewish and Christian scriptures, by the way, reject the notion of pantheism.

Another view that has been around forever and has been enjoying a rebound of sort for the last hundred years or so is panentheism, which literally translates “everything in God” and, by extension, God is in everything. God, the animator, energizer, lover, restorer, renewer, redeemer, etc., is present all the time, everywhere, at work in everything. God is never distant – and cannot be – because God is in everything. God cannot be silent or inactive or unredeeming or unloving or uncreative or unrestoring or... because God remains God in everything. If this is true, it means that when we experience periods when God seems silent or distant, it may have more to do with our awareness, perspective, and perception than anything else. Surely this was not entirely lost on people of antiquity. There are too many experiences that are shared by humanity that support this idea even if we don’t know how to express it. The feeling of joy and hope and love at the sight of a newborn child or animal. The wonder of Spring, the fullness of Summer, the shift of Fall and the dead of Winter. Love. Joy. The majesty of creation. Friendship. Solidarity. The peace and calm that accompanies deep meditation and contemplation. There are just so many instances and experiences where, upon reflection, we might say to ourselves, “I think there is more going on here than flesh and blood” (not to minimize flesh and blood which are also incredible examples of God’s presence).

Part of our hesitancy to embrace such an idea is that the dominant way of thinking remains stuck in theism, where we humans are not good and creation itself is doomed for destruction because it isn’t good, either. Yet this runs counter to the very first utterances in our scared text, where everything is good and even very good, with God speaking it all into being. The concept of the fall of man – which was not the original interpretation of the Adam, Eve, and Apple story – went too far, building on Paul’s work for a different purpose and becoming its own monster, giving license for people in power to wield it over those below them. Theism needs to go. It doesn’t reflect God well and does little to help us move forward into greater maturity.

Next week we will look at Jesus and consider how he actually lived more from a panentheistic framework than a theistic one. For now, take some time and wonder how it might be true that the presence of God is all around you and even in you. God is neither distant nor silent. Can you sense God? Can you hear God? Maybe we are all like Elijah, assuming God will show up only in the limited places we are looking. Maybe we are all like the characters in the birth narrative of Jesus – feeling like we’ve been left behind only to discover that God is fully with us all the time if we’ll learn to have eyes to see.

In the live teaching I again featured Dr. Andrew M. Davis. Check out his book of spiritual memoirs from some well-known voices, How I Found God in Everyone and Everywhere - it will inspire!