There’s a certain odd hush that comes upon a town at Christmas Eve.
It’s not that people aren’t still working. Those days when everyone got off work for Christmas are long gone. But a calm still manages to descend as families gather, and the majority of stores shut off their lights and workers head home.
That’s the scene we all long for, I believe: the gathering of loved ones together. Those rare times when all who you count as precious in your life — your family — are safely together in one place.
But not everyone experiences that at the holidays. Some of those we love are far away, and some are gone from this world for good. This is the bittersweet aspect of the season — a longing for perfect unity with loved ones that is illusive, ephemeral, and incomplete.
For many, Heaven will be the next time they’ll know that joyful reunion.
A middle-aged couple from out of town visited my church over the Thanksgiving holidays. Their son was in the city jail, and they traveled down to spend a few moments with him. Sadly, when they arrived for Thanksgiving they discovered they were only able to talk to him through a video monitor.
Though they admitted to me he’d done wrong, they still wished they could save their son from the punishment he was facing. As they shared their hearts with me, I was sympathetic and sincerely concerned.
However, there was one thing I didn’t say to them. It’s the one thing pastors try never to say to people going through excruciating experiences.
I couldn’t say I knew how they felt. Because I didn’t have a clue.
As we talked, the faces of my own kids flashed through my mind. I’ll admit that as we talked, I whispered a prayer under my breath.
“Please God, don’t ever let me know how they feel”.
They needed someone to grieve with them, but I was completely unqualified. They needed someone who could feel what they’ve felt, who’s experienced what they have.
When you think about it, there’s one question people asked God that He couldn’t answer. At least not at first.
“God, do you know what it feels like?”
I know some theologians would remind me there’s nothing God doesn’t know. I certainly wouldn’t disagree. God is omniscient – He knows everything. If He didn’t, he wouldn’t really be God.
However, while He technically must be all knowing, there are some things He could not have experienced.
God was all powerful, limitless. So He could never have experienced feeing limited.
God was infinite knowledge. He could never have felt doubtful or uncertain.
God was self-sufficient. It was impossible for Him to feel hunger or be in need.
God was complete in and of Himself. He’d never known loneliness or loss.
The list could go on and on of all the things God is. But there was nothing He was that was vulnerable or human. So when life inevitably beats us down, how could He possibly know how we feel?
One Bible passage quoted often during the Christmas season is a prophecy from Isaiah, quoted in Matthew 1:23. It gave one of the names for the Son to be born of a virgin: Immanuel, meaning God with us.
That name changed everything.
That name was God’s answer to the question we pose every time a tragedy strikes us. When we’re hurting, we naturally want someone to hurt with us. We want to know we are not alone in our pain.
With the birth of the Baby in the manger 2000 years ago, God stepped into our painful experience firmly with both feet. By purposely limiting Himself, He entered our world in the most vulnerable, helpless form possible: a baby.
Since Luke 2:52 says Jesus grew in wisdom, He must have limited His knowledge. Like a blind man, He had to be led each step at a time by the Father. He was perfect and sinless, yet vulnerable and completely human – fully God and fully man (Titus 2:13-14).
He was God enough to save us, yet man enough to feel for us.
Now God actually does know, from personal experience, what you’re going through. By coming to earth and leaving Himself open to every possible abuse, God is saying to you, “I get it. I do know what it’s like to be human and to be hurt deeply”.
Of the three major events in Jesus’ life – birth, crucifixion, and resurrection – each sends a personal message to us.
The message of the cross is that everything you ever fouled up — every sin is over and done, paid in full!
The message of the resurrection is Death, your greatest enemy, is already defeated. So live life in confidence and peace.
And the message of Christmas to you is God has already been through what you’re going through. Not only that, He is with you right now.
To those parents longing for the safe return of their wayward son, God says, “I know exactly how you feel”. To those alone, separated from family and friends this Christmas, God says, “I’ve been through that too”. To the betrayed, abused and abandoned, who has experienced that more than Jesus?
So the answer to your darkest question is “Yes, He knows exactly how you feel tonight”.
As you read this, whether you feel it or not, Jesus has slipped into the room beside you. Jesus has joined you in your suffering.
As He sits beside you, He doesn’t speak. Instead, He looks directly into your eyes with a look anyone who has suffered can recognize. That look says to you, without a word, “Yes, I know.’’
Allow Him to sit quietly with you now. And ever so gently, He will take His hand and gently slips it into yours.
When you feel that scare in his hand, you’ll know it’s there to remind you this is a man who know what it means to be hurt. Today, He can answer the question in every suffering heart, “Yes, I know how you feel”.
And He went through it all just so He could be the God who is with you – Emmanuel.
