“Where is your God now?” a more-familiar-than-desired voice taunts inside my head.
“You’ve prayed for healing for six years, and now your wife
is dying.”
I want to deny any share in the genesis of this intrusive
sentiment, but if I were honest, I own more than I would like to
admit. Over the last six years of living
with metastatic breast cancer, I have prayed/pled/bargained/begged/fasted/wept
to seek healing for my beautiful bride.
Every new round of chemo, all those tantalizing natural cancer cure
protocols, anointing services, prayers of the faithful, vegetable juice,
vitamin C, turmeric, Turkey Tail – an endless list of reasons to hope that we
would find the elusive key to make the cancer disappear. I would be remiss to negate the blessings and
miracles we have experienced along the way (for they have been sundry), but the
fact remains that tonight my wife labors to breathe with the aid of an oxygen
concentrator – home on hospice.
Where is the God of the miraculous when the missionary wife
you have prayed for can’t lift her head off her pillow?
My mind knows He is here with us, and in my heart I believe
that a miraculous healing would not be hard for Him. No harder than it is for me to flip a pancake
or open a door. But sometimes it feels
as though I am alone. That I am not
tracking with Him. That in this murky
grief, I reach for Him, but falter.
I don’t think I would have recognized Him then, either. Unless I was specially favored to be a shepherd
or a wise man, I would have missed him.
That night when the Baby God was born.
Gods are supposed to be powerful. Thunder and lightning bolts, legions of
angels, supernatural strength, and otherworldly domination. The gods order their dominion with uncontested
might to subdue any inkling of rebellion.
How could a transcendent Deity be a baby? No wonder things aren’t working out for me -
a Baby God can’t solve the problems of the world – He couldn’t heal cancer or
bring justice on earth, or squelch rebellion and sin…?
I am not a baby person.
I was the baby of the family, and so all those other kids didn’t really
matter as they were more like competition than anything important. Shallena has always been the opposite. Babies have always been her world. I can remember time after time when she would
say to me, “look at that baby over there, isn’t that bow cute?” or “did you see
what that little boy did?” I was almost
always in the middle of a thought that went something like, “…uhh…what?...no…there’s
a baby?” I wish now I had shared these moments with her.
I just didn’t get it.
Even when we had our own, my attitude was more like, “Hey, why does the
baby get all the attention around here…?”
She loved them. She
looked deep in their eyes, interpreted their subtleties, and connected with
them from the youngest of ages. They had
a power of attraction over her that she could not resist. Their
purity, simplicity, innocence, and love captivated her. Their winsome smiles and laughter magnetized
her affections and mobilized her assets.
Once we had our own, there was nothing she would not give to take care
of that little life that had joined ours.
So, there He is – the Baby God of Christmas– wrapped in
swaddling clothes. Ignored by the bustle. Worshiped and venerated by the heavenly and a
few faithful earthlings. Why did they
worship? Why did everybody else miss
it?
I have always associated God with power. I want a God that can order the universe,
establish the right, heal cancer, and solve the earthly and galactic problems
with finality. I suppose this is a
perfect set up for why I sometimes struggle to find God in my pain. I don’t want pain, and therefore God should
remove it. I want Him to resolve my pain
and give me what I want. If He doesn’t,
then I don’t recognize Him around here.
But the Baby God of Christmas has a different approach. “God with us” didn’t erase all the problems
of the sin-ridden sod. He was hunted as
an infant. He grew up in poverty. He was homeless. His food came from friends and
strangers. He rode on a borrowed
donkey. He was the victim of an unjust
system. He owned one piece of clothing. He endured false accusations and lying
testimony. He was beaten for wrongs He
did not commit. He was cruelly executed after
being declared innocent.
This beautiful, humble, childlike God lived a harmless life on
earth in purity, simplicity, innocence, and love. He didn’t reverse the general order of this world,
but He did introduce the new order of His kingdom.
“Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Matthew 18:1
“Truly I tell you, unless you change
and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes
me.” Matthew 18:3-5
That’s where Jesus is!
He’s over there with those insignificant children. Shallena was right all along. While I was hopelessly lost in ascending the
ranks of the important ones (much like the dear disciples in this story), she was
intently studying the kingdom of the Baby God.
These little precious ones more closely approximate the divine than all my
Zeus and Shiva lookalikes. Instead of
looking for a Deity that would solve all our problems, she was relishing the joy
of the imminent Immanuel.
Now I wouldn’t want to suggest that the beautiful Baby “God
with us” can’t solve our problems. On
the contrary, “God with us” is the solution to all our problems. Sometimes He
works miracles in the here and now, and I have no doubt He could do that for
Shallena tonight. Sometimes He allows
the pain and loss for a season. But do
not be deceived - the childlike kingdom of the God Baby we celebrate this
Christmas is snowballing. This kind of pure love cannot be overcome, and though
the gates of Hell rail against it – they only magnify the goodness of it! He wasn’t just a baby born of a virgin, He is
a Divine Savior. He guaranteed His
promise of eternal safety with the shedding of His own blood. The power of sin
and death has been broken, the grave has no hold on those who trust Him. This kingdom of kids – the government of the gentle,
designed and secured by that sweet Baby of Bethlehem will grow until it fills
all heaven and earth - an unstoppable force of grace. “God with us”
marches forward despite our brokenness and loss. And very soon we will see the Christmas Baby coming in the clouds to take us home. “Amen. Even so, come Lord
Jesus.” Revelation 22:20.
The oxygen concentrator is still huffing and puffing. Shallena is still struggling.
“Where is your God now?”
He is with us. And I
love Him so much.
