Advent Thoughts

It's Christmas Day, and I'll admit, I'm a little sad. I have always loved the anticipation of things--birthdays, vacations, holidays, parties--almost as much as the thing itself. And so it is with Christmas. As a little girl, I would lie awake in bed for weeks before Christmas, imaging the fun times with family and the many gifts under the tree. I would count down from at least a hundred days to the day, driving my mom crazy. And then Christmas would come. It would be glorious, of course, everything I imagined it to be and more. But then it would be over so quickly and I would feel sort of empty. I loved that anxious feeling, the beforehand waiting, the most. I guess that's why I love Advent.

And now it's over. Taylor and I packed up our presents and brought them upstairs. In a couple of days I'll pack up my suitcase and go home. When I get back to Bethel, I'll pack up my Christmas decorations and put them away. And this sweetness, this waiting for Jesus to come, it seems I'll have to pack it up as well.

But the beauty of Advent is that it not only celebrates Christ's coming to us in a manger, but anticipates His coming to us in undeniable glory. That anticipation, that waiting, does not have to be packed up with the Christmas ornaments. And when the Day finally arrives, it will not pale in comparison to my anxious waiting for it, as Christmas sometimes does.

What I have loved this Advent is learning to relate to God as the One Who Comes. It wasn't just in that Bethlehem stall that God revealed Himself as Immanuel--no!--He has been Immanuel for all of eternity past. He is the God who is present with His people.

In fact, it's the pillar of cloud, again, that reminds us of God's ever-present-ness with the Israelites. It was the cloud by day and the fire by night, the Shekinah, Hebrew for "dwelling," that reminded God's people of His care for them and directed them where they should go (Numbers 9). God came to Moses in the burning bush. He spoke to Abraham. He walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. He said to Joshua, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go." God with us. Not just beginning with Jesus, but from the beginning of creation.

In Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus, John MacArthur writes, "You see, God only whispers in His creation. He revealed a shadow of His glory in the Shekinah. But He speaks with absolute clarity in His Word. 'God...spoke' (Hebrews 1:1), and not in a whisper, but in full voice. Still, there was an incompleteness in it all until, '[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:2).

"Now that is God shouting. You can't mistake it. Christ is God, and you see every attribute of God manifest in him. His judgment, his justice, his love, his wisdom, his power, his omniscience. It's all there in person as we see Him walk through the world, working his work, living his life. The fullness of God may be seen as it was never seen before in Jesus Christ."

And this is the One we call Immanuel, who saw fit to leave his heavenly dwelling and make his home among us, visibly and personally. This is the Incarnation we celebrate at Christmas: the coming of the One of whom the prophet Zechariah said, "Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you," declares the LORD" (Zechariah 2:10). He is the one

who enables the psalmist to declare,

"say to those with fearful hearts,
"Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you" (Psalm 35:4).

But there is more! The One who came to us then, and who made himself continually present by imparting the Holy Spirit to dwell in the hearts of believers (John 14:26), is also the One who will come again! Revelation 21:1-8, one of the Advent Scriptures, gives us a beautiful description of what will happen on that Day:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

And so our Jesus, the supreme expression of God with us, will come and dwell among us fully and finally. He will make everything new and--the most encouraging thing to me this first Christmas after Grandma Russell's death--will do away with the affects of sin, all pain and death and mourning. Glory! This is the holy paradox: our God has come...and He is coming to reign forevermore!

Simchat Torah

Voices lifted in song, they take turns clutching the Torah scrolls to their chests as they dance through the aisles of the synagogue. Spinning, hopping on one foot and then the other. Eyes closed. Spinning, spinning.

A year ago, I spent my first Shabbat with the congregation Tikvat Yisrael in Richmond on Simchat Torah, the most joyful day of the Jewish liturgical calendar, and now my favorite Jewish holiday. I arrived a few minutes late to the 10 o'clock service (pretty early for a college-girl) and was a bit bewildered by the scene unfolding around me. It only took a moment, however, for me to be utterly captivated.

Simchat Torah comes on the heals of Sukkot, the festival in which Jews remember God's provision for them in the desert (see previous post). Of course, the pinnacle of their time in the desert was the meeting at Mt. Sinai, where God imparted His covenant and His Word. The tradition surrounding Simchat Torah, or "the Joy of the Torah," gives voice to a topic I've written about a lot recently: God's revelation. For Jews, and especially for our Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ, the revelation of God is always cause for celebration and joy.

As I took everything in, one of the ushers approached me to explain that this celebration was part of the centuries old tradition of thanking God for the gift of His Word. He went on to say that because the Greek word Logos from John 1:1 can be translated Torah in Hebrew, the holiday takes on a special significance for Jews who embrace Jesus as Messiah. And then he said something I'll never forget. With a joy that penetrated to the depths of my heart, this dear man exclaimed, "Yeshua has become our Torah! The Torah dwells among us!"

As the Torah scrolls danced by my pew, those around me lovingly touched the scrolls and then kissed their hands (a practice that is not reserved solely for this holiday, but that occurs every Shabbat). I followed suit, completely swept up in the worship of the God who speaks powerfully to His people, the God who would lower Himself to dwell among us. As they danced we sang:

Hineh ha Torah!
Hineh Yeshua!
Hineh ha Torah!
Hineh Hu ba!

translation: "Behold the Torah! Behold Jesus! Behold the Torah! Behold He comes!"

Both the tradtion and the song are beautiful reminders that God has fulfilled His promise in Jeremiah 31:33 where He speaks through the prophet: "'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel at that time' declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." The word "law" here is the word Torah in Hebrew. So when Jesus proclaims that He has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17), He is saying that He is the one who will enact the New Covenant in which the law will be on the hearts of God's people. In Jewish understanding, as I have noted before, the lev, or "heart" is the seat of action and emotion. The implication, of course, is that if God's law is written on your lev, then everything you do will be influenced by Him. Messianic Jews recognize that the Torah is written on their leviym (hearts) in the person of Yeshua!

In non-Messianic synagogues, the words that are sung obviously do not revel in the provision of Jesus. Rather, the worshipers pray Ana Adonai, hoshia na, which translates "Oh Lord, save us." What's interesting about this prayer relates again to the Hebrew: the volative verb hoshia stems from the root yeshua, meaning "salvation." This is the Jewish name for Jesus. So even as they celebrate God's gift of the Torah removed from the One who has fullfilled it, non-Messianic Jews affirm their need for God's saving grace.

This year, Tikvat celebrated Simchat Torah on Wednesday, the actual day that culminates Sukkot. Needless to say, I was disappointed when I arrived at Tikvat this past Saturday morning, expecting to sing Hineh ha Torah. I had been thrilled to find that Homecoming weekend coincided with the day I thought my Messianic friends would celebrate the holiday that marks my first anniversary of worshiping with them. Nevertheless, my time with them was sweet as the scrolls were taken from the ark and danced around the room, and as we praised the God who has become our Torah.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
John 1:1, 14

God With Us: Futher Thoughts

My friend Sarah and I had a good heart-to-heart last night, and (without even thinking about my post from yesterday) I found myself expressing how difficult it is for me to live in God's presence. I believe that He has a plan for my life beyond my comprehension, and I believe that He will prove Himself mighty on my behalf, but let me just be frank: I rarely dwell on His presence with me in the ho-hum and the hustle-bustle. So it seems that my post from yesterday, though I believe it all intellectually, was meant to convict me practically.

In thinking about my unbelief, I was near tears this morning as I listened to a lesser-known Caedmon's call song, "Rest Upon Us" on the way to work. I thought I'd share the lyrics. Notice the three-fold nature of God's revelation (in keeping with the three ways He "makes Himself small") mentioned in the chorus:

my soul is weary and my cup is dry
I am so in need of you
though my righteousness is rags
your mercies are new

so Lord, come down to me,
so my heart can see,
how encompassing your grace can be

Holy Spirit, rest upon us,
Breath of God, touch my soul,
come unfailing love of Jesus,
rest upon us, rest upon us,

my mind is heavy and my days are long,
I lift my eyes up in the night,
my heart it weighs me down,
but your burden is light,

so Lord, come walk with me
until my heart believes
all the bounties that your grace can bring

Holy Spirit, rest upon us,
Breath of God, touch my soul,
come unfailing love of Jesus,
rest upon us, rest upon us,

I will wait for you
I will wait for you
you rest upon us
come rest upon us

Resting today in the assurance of God's presence!

God With Us

You probably know that Immanuel, one of the names designated in the Tanak (Old Testament) for the messianic figure, means "God with us." The name Immanuel didn't lead Jews to look for God incarnate but rather for the assurance of God's presence; still, it's not difficult to see how that prophetic name for the coming Messiah reached its fulfillment in the person of Jesus, the God-man. And this notion is far more than just a name to sing songs about in December; God really is with us!

As Lauren Winner has said in her memoir Girl Meets God, "Here is the thing about God: He is so big and so perfect that we can't really understand Him. We can't possess Him or apprehend Him. But God so wants to be in a relationship with us that He makes Himself smaller than He really is. Smaller and more humble [in His still] infinite and perfect and beautiful self, so that we may be able to get to Him, if even just a little bit."

First, God made Himself small for us by giving His Word. The Israelites were able to "get to Him" because He spoke to them through the vehicle of human language, first audibly, then through judges and prophets, then in the written canon of Hebrew Scripture. And today we Christians have not only the Tanak, but also the New Testament to guide us in our understanding of God. And this Book is no less a miracle and no less an Incarnation than the Son; in fact, the Apostle John tells us (John 1) that they are inextricably linked. What a paradox we live in that we can know God intimately even as we wait to know Him fully (1 Corinthians 13:12)!

Next, He made Himself small by coming to us in a manger: the "fullness of God in helpless babe" as Keith and Kristyn Getty put it in their modern hymn, "In Christ Alone." And this is the doctrine that is so unbelievable to Jews: how could a Holy God who has instructed us to believe that he is ONE, duplicate Himself in the form of a human being? And surely, the doctrine of the Trinity is an impossible one to conceptualize fully, as I talked about in a recent post titled "HaShem." But we Evangelicals believe that regardless of our ability to completely understand God's nature, He is above all, three in one. And so Jesus, "being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedience to death--even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6-8). This is the Gospel, and it would not be possible without the God-man. If God were not an incarnational God, we would be stuck making sacrifices once a year to get close to Him.

Finally, He made Himself small by giving us the Holy Spirit. And this is no small thing. To have the Spirit of a Holy God residing within our hearts is a mighty thing, indeed! There are many who want to de-emphasize this revelation, and others still who want to overemphasize it. It's important for us to remember the significance of God's promise to His people in Jeremiah 31:31-33: "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.'" I'll write more about the nature of God's covenant with His people in a coming post, but for now lets suffice to say that this promise was fulfilled at Pentacost when the Spirit came to dwell in the hearts of the believers. We can stand on the promise that the Spirit will guide us in all truth (John 16:13), will intercede for us on behalf of God the Father (Romans 8:27), and will impart perfect peace (Romans 8:6).

And so, as Tozer has said "God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is a revelation--a casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men truth after truth." God, by His very nature is a God of revelation. He is incarnational in His approach to us, wanting us to get a taste of Him in this life so that we may feast on Him in the life that is to come. We may not have Him here with us in the flesh any longer, but we do have the assurance of God's presence through His Word and His Spirit. He is Immanuel.

For more on this concept, look for a post in the coming weeks about my favorite Jewish holiday and some pretty profound Messianic traditions!

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