God with us

Thursday of the Third Week of Advent
Gospel: Mt 1:18-25
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121825.cfm

Emmanual, or “God with us”, is one of the names of Jesus. God is all powerful (omnipotent),l knowing (omniscient), and all present (omnipresent). God is the creator of all things. God manifests life. God spoke existence into being. With all this power, knowing, and presence, our God chose to be with us. Of all the things, God chose us. To be with us is not to strictly know us, be present with us, or hold power over us. Our God gave up on all those things to truly be with us. 

God experienced what we experienced first hand as one of us through Jesus. Jesus experienced doubt, experienced empathy, experienced frustration, experienced sadness, experienced happiness, experienced connection with others, experienced disapproval from others. Jesus experienced faith, hope, and love. While all of that could have been known by God, God wanted to experience it as us. God gave up on eternity to experience time; to be both objectively and subjectively human. To experience the human condition: birth, death, and everything in between. All of this to be with us in both the literal and figurative sense.

Everything in one person. And in so doing, taking the time and place in history to help guide and show us the way so that we could experience the same. When Jesus is said to be the word made flesh, it’s not a reference to scripture coming to life. First off, not all the scripture was written yet. The word is the catalyst that brought all existence into being. Why would that seek and want to be with us?

Earlier today, I learned of a prayer St. Francis frequently prayed and would pray hours on end. It was simply this: “Who are you, my God, and who am I?” There is a deeper love and experience that transcends our understanding and it wants to be with you. It wants to be with us.