“It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old”
(Isaiah 63:9).
God’s people, Israel, were experiencing a spiritual crisis that caused them to question everything they thought they knew both about themselves and about God. Who were they now that their temple, the very center of their faith, lay in ruins? Who was God now that, instead of experiencing God’s blessing, they were experiencing the full force of God’s anger? Was there any future for them now that their very present seemed so tenuous and unsustainable?
Into the midst of Israel’s spiritual angst, the prophet reminds God’s people of all that God had already done for them. It was God’s presence that had saved them. It was God who had redeemed them. It was God who had lifted them up and carried them all the days of old. It was God who had done all these things for them. Remember, Israel? Not you, but God! Only in remembering all that God had already done for them would Israel be motivated to repent, to turn back, to start living life the way God intended. Grace first, then repentance.
An image I often use to explain our Lutheran understanding of the gospel is the image of a down arrow. As God’s people who confess that we are saved only by grace through faith in Christ, we Lutherans understand salvation to be a down arrow, that is, a gift that comes down to us from God. In contrast to so many other faith expressions, including among many who consider themselves to be Christian, in which salvation is the result of our human aspiring to somehow elevate ourselves up to the divine, we Lutheran Christians confess that salvation is the result of the divine coming down to us, in Jesus, crucified and risen.
It is this “coming down,” this divine down arrow, that is the heart of Christmas. In the Christ-child, the Word-made-flesh, God comes down to us. It is this same Word-made-flesh that comes down to us in baptism, initiating with us a holy relationship as we are joined together with Christ’s own death and resurrection. It is this same Word-made-flesh that comes down to us in, under, and with the bread and wine of Holy Communion, gifting us with God’s forgiveness and a foretaste of eternal feast to come. In God’s own coming down to us in Jesus, we are saved, we are redeemed, we are lifted up and carried forward into mission for the sake of the world.
Is not this the good news that our churches, our communities, our world needs to be reminded of this Christmas? In the midst of our own spiritual crises, both individually and corporately, do we not need to be reminded of all that God has already done for us? Do we not need to be reminded that our relationship with God is not dependent on our own going up, but rather on God’s own coming down? This good news is the Word we, like the prophets before us, have been called to share this Christmas! This is the Word the world needs to hear more than any other. If you do not say anything else this Christmas, say this . . .
Down in a lonely manger
the humble Christ was born;
and God sent us salvation
that blessed Christmas morn. (ELW #290)
As we celebrate Christmas, be reminded that God’s down arrow has come into the world for you … and, for all.
In the grace of the One who came down +
Bishop Greg