There’s a 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: 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 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 once. 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.
They had come to my church because they knew I was the jail chaplain. Since he was very young, they wanted me to check on him and make sure he wasn’t being mistreated. As they shared their hearts with me, I was sympathetic and sincerely concerned.
However, there was one thing I didn’t say to them. 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 with common experience to grieve with them, someone who could feel what they’ve felt. But what if they’d asked, “Do you really know how we feel?” That was a question I couldn’t answer.
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 this 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 is all powerful, limitless. So He could never have experienced feeling limited.
God has infinite knowledge. He could never have felt doubtful or uncertainty.
God is self-sufficient. It would be impossible for Him to feel hunger or be in need.
God is 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 what He wasn’t was vulnerable or human. So when life inevitably beats us down, any words of sympathy or comfort from Him would ring hollow?
But one Bible passage quoted often during the Christmas season gave a clue to how God would eventually answer our question. It’s 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, on earth 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, 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 every one of your failures — 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 is God has already been through what you’re going through. Not only that, He is with you in that trial 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 those things more than Jesus?
So the answer to mankind’s darkest question is a confident “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 need to 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 slip 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 knows what it means to be hurt.
And He went through it all just so He could answer your question and be “the God who is with you” – Emmanuel.
