God is with (All of) Us: A Reflection for Christmas 2023

Today, as I reflect on the miracle of Christmas, I find myself returning to a theme I often come back to on this day: God is with us. And so, at the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to repeat myself. God is with us. God is with us in a divided, hurting world. God is with us in our anxieties and despair. God is with us in our joys that can’t seem to keep up with our sorrows. God is with us. God is with us. God is with us. And this has everything to do with Christmas.

It has everything to do with Christmas because, as Christians, we believe that this baby born so long ago in Bethlehem is quite literally God-with-us, God-made-flesh, the fullest expression of God’s love for the world. Christmas forever changed what it meant for God to be with us. But this message ‘God is with us’ also has everything to do with Christmas because Christmas forever changed what it meant to be ‘us’. In a divided world, full of ‘us’es and ‘them’s, insiders and outsiders, the birth of Jesus changed everything. At least in potential. And that’s what’s sticking out to me today about this story. The message of Christmas is that God is with us — all of us.

This was not always the case, our Scriptures tell us. When Isaiah proclaimed that a young woman would conceive a child and he would be called Immanuel, ‘God-with-us’ (Isaiah 7.14), he did this in the midst of a war. The combined forces of Syria and Israel had invaded and had Jerusalem surrounded (remembering that in the period of the divided monarchy (most of Biblical history), Israel was a separate kingdom from Judah, of which Jerusalem was the capital). This baby, ‘God-with-us’ was to be a sign for the Judahites that God had not abandoned them. God was on their side and not their enemies’. This is made clear in the following chapter, particularly in the Septuagint (LXX) version (which is the version the New Testament quotes):

God is with us!
Understand, you nations, and humble yourselves!
Listen unto the end of the earth, you strong ones, and humble yourselves!
And even if you should be strong again, you will again humble yourselves.
If ever you should take counsel together, the Lord will disperse you,
And if you should make a pronouncement, it will not persist for you.
For God the Lord is with us.” (Isaiah 8.8b-10, LXX)

But as the first Christians came to understand Jesus to be the ultimate fulfillment of the Immanuel prophecy, they saw that in Jesus we needed a radical redefinition of what it means to be God’s people, of who the “us” is whom “God is with.” In him, all those old divisions that keep humanity divided are broken down; “for in him there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free” (Galatians 3.28), and “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2.14). In light of this, Isaiah 8 was reframed by the gospel, no longer a warning to Judah’s enemies, but a call to faith for everyone: No longer did the faithful sing, “God is with us and and so submit yourselves to us” but “God is with us and so humble yourselves before God.”

No longer “God is with us (and not you)” but now “God is with (all of) us.”

Christmas is God rewriting history within our messy world to make a better future for everyone.

We see this clearly in the Christmas story itself, for every character opens the circle of ‘us’ wider:

Mary and Joseph: Our traditions tell us that Mary and Joseph were both of good Israelite heritage, but they lived under the dark veil of scandal because of Mary’s untimely pregnancy. But God is with them in the slander. And God will be with them when they are soon displaced by the violence of their government and forced across the southern border into Egypt for safety.

The Shepherds: As much as we may love our pastoral imagery, shepherds were seen as being dirty and uncouth — more like a biker gang than a Precious Moments ornament. Some even suggest that shepherds were thought to be unable to fulfill the requirements of the Law and so were seen as ‘unclean’ and religiously suspect. Yet they are the first to hear the news of Jesus’ birth. God is with them in the stares of their ‘betters’, in their poverty and lives on the margins and brings them right into the heart of what God is doing.

The Magi: In Matthew’s account, the infant Jesus is visited by ‘Magi’, likely priestly or royal astrologers from Mesopotamia or Persia. These are foreigners, Gentiles, men whom ‘good’ religious folk would have nothing to do with. Yet God is with them. God is with them in their search for truth. God is with them in their open eyes and open hearts. God is with them and invites them to come and see.

The animals: According to Luke’s account, Jesus is born in the lower level of a humble, peasant home, a place that doubled as a barn for the family livestock. And so, these animals too are part of God’s blessing:

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah 11.6)

As one medieval hymn would put it:

O great mystery,
and wonderful oath,
that animals should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger!

And so God is with all of those who receive the Good News of Christ’s birth. But that’s not all. For God is also with the messengers.

The Angels: The shepherds hear word of Jesus’ birth from a heavenly, angelic army. The wonder of Christmas extends now from the material world to the spiritual realm as well.

The Star: Finally, there is the other divine messenger in the story, whatever astronomical event caught the Magi’s attention and sent them on their quest. Even the distant heavens are invited in. The message is now for the whole kosmos: “For God so loved the kosmos that he gave his only Son…” (John 3.16); and “…the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8.21).

And so, now we see the full scope of what it was God was doing in Christ. It is the Good News of peace-making and faithfulness not just for ‘good’ Jews or ‘bad’ Jews, not just for us Gentiles, not just for the animal world, but for the spiritual realm, and even the kosmos itself too. All are welcomed into the Good News. All are welcomed into the family of God.

And that is Good News for all of us, of hope, peace, joy, and love this Christmas.

May we all rejoice in God’s gracious welcome today and for ever.

Amen.