The Light of Hope: God with Us
When I was working at a company that developed arcade video games, we would put games out on test. These were fully built games with painted wooden cabinets and printed graphics. We would work with a location that had video games: usually video game arcades, but sometimes restaurants or bars, depending on the intended audience.
One time there was something we needed to fix in seven machines that were in the field. The way we needed to fix this was to replace a number of programmable integrated circuits, or “chips.” If you know the term EPROM, that’s what they were.
I don’t remember the number of EPROMS, but I think it was around 12. And it was my job to go out and replace them. The problem was making that many copies. I think it took about thirty minutes to program one.
Once we had programmed one, we had two machines that could copy them, so making the seven copies took another 30 minutes.
So 30 minutes per EPROM we had to copy, and two copy machines, makes it about 15 minutes per copy.
Or about three hours for 12.
Our games developers tried to explain this to our Vice President, but he said
“I WANT THESE DONE IN ONE HOUR. NO EXCUSES”
and stormed off.
One of our game developers said “someone better tell the duplicator machines.”
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
When we imagine the Creator, we typically use things we already know.
People often imagine their gods as men with beards, and usually men from their own ethnicity. Gods have the same desires and emotions we do. They often hold grudges.
And while we imagine that gods in ways we understand, we often use our experience to imagine gods who don’t understand us.
Most of us have had supervisors or bosses who made unreasonable demands. That’s usually because the supervisor doesn’t really know what it takes to do what we do.
And so we may imagine a Creator who doesn’t know what it’s like to be human.
How could God? God has never wanted for food, or had to deal with disease or injury. God has never been lost, or cold, or hot. And so maybe God is making unreasonable demands because God doesn’t know what it’s like to be us.
But then there’s Jesus.
However we understand Jesus, the story begins with his birth. The same trauma through which we enter the world is the way Jesus enters.
Jesus grows up the same way we do, and not in a king’s palace.
Jesus spends time in the wilderness, being hungry and thirsty.
Jesus eats and drinks with people.
Jesus stands with the people who have the least power:
the poor, the foreigners, those with disease and injury.
Jesus is loved by some, feared and hated by others.
Jesus dies. Painfully.
So if praying to an all-powerful creator of the universe seems like calling on a boss who doesn’t understand what we do and what we need to do it, praying to Jesus is like calling on an experienced person in our own line of work, someone who has been through the same – or similar – situations and knows how hard it can be.
Our light of Hope is the light of Christ, the light that darkness could not extinguish.
Our light of Hope is the light of Jesus, who suffered the same kinds of challenges we do.
As we stand against powers, Jesus stands with us.
As we work for justice, Jesus works with us.
As we cry out for mercy, Jesus cries out with us.
Even if no one comes with us on the journey, we are not alone, because Jesus walks with us.
It’s not enough for Jesus to be God with us. We also need to be with Jesus.
That means sometimes we will be in uncomfortable situations because
we stand against powers
we work for justice
we cry out for mercy
and we walk with Jesus.
If we want Jesus to go with us, we need to go with Jesus.
In Matthew 5:3-11 we read that Jesus said
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:3-11, NRSVue
Jesus did not say “blessed are the powerful” or “blessed are the rich” or “blessed are the well-armed.”
They didn’t need such reassurance.
But Jesus called as his followers those who knew what it was like to struggle in one way or another, even fishers, even tax collectors.
Jesus knows what it’s like to be us, and to a degree, we know what it’s like to be Jesus.
That’s why we’re the body of Christ.
So my challenge to us this week when we celebrate the Word made flesh, God-with-us, coming into our world, is first to know that we do not face challenges alone, but that Jesus is with us, and second that we are called to face challenges with Jesus, and to not avoid them.
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 46 Hope of the World
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
#accompany #Emmanuel #Immanuel #solidarity
