God With Us

I remember when I was in seminary, I had a year-long class serving under a chaplain at one of the major city hospitals in Atlanta. And once a week I had to walk past the halls of the nee-natal intensive care unit. More than once I wondered: Where is God?

Maybe you have looked at the suffering of the world around you and wondered the same thing…

John begins his gospel “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and lived among us.  

And this word hungered, and thirsted and bled and died… 

This speaks to a mystery that is at the heart of the Christian faith: That God was fully present in Jesus.

It’s hard to get my mind around that. But there is something beautiful in it.  

Last week, I referred to Jesus’ last words from the cross in the Gospel of John: It is finished…

Even after years of study, I have to admit that there are aspects of our theology around the cross that I don’t fully understand. But I hold this close to the heart: We worship a God who knows what it is to suffer… who in Christ on that cross is forever with us in our suffering. 

God is with those who hold out on front lines – in refugee camps and in war zones. God is with the mother holding her child in the ICU. God is with the lonely, the hungry, the heartbroken. 

I’m reminded of Jesus’ last words. No longer can we think we suffer alone. It is finished.

Let us pray: We thank you for your love for us, O God. We thank you for becoming as we are, for walking as walk, suffering as we suffer. Be near to the brokenhearted and to those who need you most. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.