One of us.

Do you ever find yourself longing for Jesus’ return? I have been seeing so many posts on the internet of people talking about Jesus coming back to get us. I have Cece Winans song, “Come Jesus Come” playing on repeat in my head, haha! It is a good thing to be excited about Jesus’ return but it can also be a distraction from our present circumstances.

God did not come so we could escape reality. He came so we would know we don’t have to face life’s situations alone. The beauty of the Christmas story is this, Isaiah 7:14 NLT, “All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).” We long for heaven, yes, but we know that right now, right here in this moment, God is with us. He is not far away. He is not at a distance. He is close.

Sometimes we are aware of the closeness of God but we ourselves choose to distance ourselves from God because we may feel that God does not understand us. We feel stressed and overwhelmed, and we think if we draw close to Jesus, He’ll look at us, shrug His shoulders and say, “Can’t relate.” But nothing could be further from the truth.

Fact is, if all Jesus needed to do was to die for our sins and pay the price we couldn’t pay to reconcile us with God, are you telling me that God, who created the universe with His words and created Adam out of dust, could not just come down to earth as 33-year-old Jesus ready for the cross? There must be a reason why Jesus decided to be born a baby and live as a human before He fulfilled His mission. I think this reason is found in Matthew 1:23 TPT, which says, “Listen! A virgin will be pregnant, she will give birth to a Son, and he will be known as “Emmanuel,” which means in Hebrew, “God became one of us.””

See there is a difference between someone being with you and someone becoming one of you. Say you have a group of friends, and a new person joins the group. Occasionally that person is invited to some things the friend group is doing, but not all things. But sometimes there comes a day when that person stops being someone who hangs out with your friends to being one of your friends.

When Jesus was born, God became one of us. He stopped being separate from us. He integrated Himself with creation.

God wanted to be one of us so He could better relate to us, so He could understand us and so He could empathise with us and appreciate our human experiences. God cares so much about us that He became one of us so He could relate to us on a deeper and more intimate level.

Have you ever shared a part of your life story with someone who has no context or understanding of what you are talking about? They may feel bad for you but they could never really understand how you feel. Now, have you ever met someone who has been through something similar and you talk to them? They get your pain, your anger, your frustration on a different level because they have been through it.

That is Jesus to us. There is no hurt or pain or suffering that we can experience that He did not experience or that He cannot relate to. The pain of losing a parent? Historians say that Joseph, the father of Jesus died before Jesus started His earthly ministry. The pain of betrayal? We all know how Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends, Judas. Being abandoned and neglected? Do we need to say more than Peter and the crowing rooster? Stressed? Jesus was so stressed in the garden the night before His crucifixion that He sweat blood. Has anyone ever lied about you? Well, the Pharisees did enough of that to Jesus just to get Him to the cross. Have you ever felt frustrated, misunderstood, alone, angry? Because Jesus felt all those things too and He understands.  

Hebrews 4:15-16 AMP says, “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin. Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].”

Christmas is a reminder that God became one of us. He understands us. We don’t need to pull away from Him. We can draw even closer because we are loved and cared for by our heavenly Father.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.