My Whole Life - The somewhat different Advent Calender XII ...

Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012. Today, we look at one particular but extremely important feature of the Christmas Story, which is also important for our advent season, for our Christmas preparation process.

God became human …

The key point of Christmas is that Jesus is born. The gospel of John describes it as “the word” which was God and was with God at the beginnen becomming flesh. The word became man. God came into his creation. God became human, he took a human face. He was recognized as man, among men.

People react quite differently on the story of God coming into his creation. When I first really understood it, I also said spontaneously: that is a strong claim, quite strong, indeed! Other people see nonsense in it and take it as just another sign that religion is rubbish. But when you act like this, you basically gave up all chances to understand what this wants to tell us.

The biblical story of Jesus is not just some old story which would be unconnected from other events and taken for reality by people who do not take reality serious. No, it is different. The story of God coming into his creation is strongly linked to the whole Old and New Testament. It is a story full of reality. And it is a key part of a story which started thousands of years earlier, and which is still going on, with many things going on day by day today!

God takes us serious …

The main point of God becoming human is: God takes us serious. Mankind is the leading race on the planet, created by the Lord just as he created all plants and animals. And he comes and shows himself, to relate himself to men and women. He comes, into his creation.

God does not only appeal to one part of our life. He takes our mind serious. And he takes our feelings serious. He takes our youth serious, our midlife and our old age. He is there with all we do, with our most common actions. He knows cold and heat, night and day, winter and summer, fear and courage.

Let us understand that God wants to address our whole life. He wants to relate to our whole person, our whole personality. He wants us completely as part of his kingdom, with all what we are and have! The kid in the Christmas story shows a lot … do we understand? (Roland Potthast) ... more texts