“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”  John 1:14

“They shall call His name Immanuel—God with us.”  Matthew 1:23

“The Mystery of Godliness is great, which is Christ in you.”

“For too long we have believed the Divine is outside of us”  John O’Donahue

What are you seeking?  What are you lacking? What are you looking for? What are you longing for? 

Perhaps it is God.  Or maybe a closer connection with God.  Or to have some kind of certainty that the God who is “out there” is also “in here.”

Somehow, and I’m not quite sure how it happens, we come to believe that God is distant, far removed from us.  Somehow, we believe, we must reach out, reach up, to grasp God.  This distance is disconcerting, and dare I say damaging to one’s faith.

It is true that God is transcendent.  But God is also immanent.  Closer to us than the air we breathe.  Closer to us than we are to ourselves. 

God is with us, that is the message of Christmas.  But “God with us” goes far beyond the historical fact of Jesus coming to earth as a baby and living a Divine Life of love and sacrifice.  It means that God is also In-Carnated, Enfleshed, in us in a very deep, mysterious, and personal way.  Our very bodies become vessels, containers, for The Spirit of Christ, The Spirit of Christmas, who lives within us.  That means, among other things, that we don’t have to search far to find God, to satisfy our spiritual longings, or to determine if or how God knows and cares for us.  God is with us an intimately meaningful and personal way.  Here is how O’Donahue describes it:

“For too long, we have believed that the divine is outside us.  This belief has strained our longing disastrously. This makes us lonely, since it is human longing that makes us holy.  The most beautiful thing about us is our longing; this longing is spiritual and has great depth and wisdom.  If you focus your longing on a faraway divinity, you put an unfair strain on your longing.  Thus it often happens that the longing reaches out toward the distant divine, but because it overstrains itself, it bends back to become cynicism, emptiness, or negativity.  This can destroy your sensibility.  Yet we do not need to put any strain whatever on our longing.  If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us.”[1]

I find what O’Donahue writes here in his poetic prose as fascinating and worth contemplating. Believing the Divine is outside strains our longing.  Consider that for a moment.  It is human longing that makes us holy.  Well worth contemplating.  Straining toward a distant divine being results in cynicism and negativity.  Could this explain why “good Christians” can be so horrible?  So very much to ponder here, and I invite you to do so.

I also invite you this Advent and Christmas to recognize Christ’s intimate presence, then welcome it, then receive it; receive Him. And in so doing have your deepest longing satisfied.

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[1] “Anam Cara” p. 59