Why?

Why do we celebrate Christmas?  Why did Jesus come?  What was the point?

There were huge reasons that God came to earth as a man in the form of Jesus.  Things like changing the course of human history by providing the ultimate sacrifice and allowing us to enter into a new covenant with God.    Big, overarching, all encompassing, epic game changing miracle stuff.

But then there is the personal why.   Why did Jesus come for me???   One of my favorite songs that I share below always reminds me of the personal reasons that Jesus came, not just to the whole earth… but to me.

He came to bring peace.   Peace to the world yes, but peace to me when my life is complicated, full of stress, in a constant state of frenzy and chaos.   Peace to me.

He came to be love.   To be love when I least deserve it and when I most need it … and to show ME what love means so that I know how I am supposed to love others.   

He came to be nearer to us.   Jesus came so that God could be closer to us — close in an intimate personal way that was never possible before.

He came to breathe life…. life when death seems closest, life when our existence seems meaningless, life when our hearts and souls seem empty and dying…

He came to be light — light shining in the darkness of our lives.  But not just so that our lives would be full of light but so that He could shine in us….

He came to be hope.  I talk a lot about hope because it is what has gotten me through the past couple of very difficult decades….   Jesus came to bring hope … but to also be our hope, and not only ours but the hope of the world.  

He came to be God with us.   That is the definition of the word Emmanuel.   God with us.  Not a God, far away and distant, but the God who is here, right now, next to us, beside us, around us, and within us.

It is my prayer that as we contemplate what it means to have God come to us this Christmas, that we will all experience Him to be the one who brings peace, became love, is near to us, breathing life in us, shining light in us, and being the hope of our very beings.   

Emanuel….  God WITH us.