God With Us
Α Ω
Lord
Jesus
Savior
Messiah
Emmanuel
Redeemer
Lamb of God
King of Kings
Wonderful, Counselor
Psalm
75 : 1
December 25 has come and gone, the advent candles have long been blown out, and the day of Epiphany is just a memory. And yet … I find that I’m still lingering in the joy of the season. My January days have been slow and calm. Each morning, as I sip coffee and eat my breakfast, I listen to Christmas hymns. Writing at the cabin, I gaze up from my desk and marvel at God’s creation: His mountains, pines, aspen, junipers, and beautiful snow. And O, the holy nights.
Recently, I had the chance to write two articles, one on fertility, and one on faith. The two matters are so closely intertwined, but it can be hard to see that because our world likes to extricate spirituality from every aspect of our day-to-day lives. To be frank, the faith article isn’t written in the way I originally envisioned. I don’t think I’ve ever been through so much back and forth during the publication process. But in the end, I like the way it turned out, and I really appreciate the editor’s guidance on the story.
Still, I feel like I’m sitting on a gold mine of material from the faith article that never made it to print. I had the chance to interview an imam, a Mormon stake president, an atheist, a Jewish woman who used to live in Jerusalem and had studied at Hebrew University, and about twenty other people of various beliefs (part of my struggle to write a cohesive piece was that I was swimming in research!). I hope I can do something with all that great material one day.
One question I asked in a number of interviews was this: “What is the biggest difference between Judaism, Islam, and biblical Christianity?” A pastor who is profiled in the story, Pastor Scott, said it boils down to one thing: “Who is Jesus? They all have a different idea of who Jesus is,” he said. “Is He truly the Messiah?”
The answer brings me back to Christmas. The “tree” of names above is similar to a design I once saw on a holiday card. Some years ago, I went through a major spiritual reorientation where I had to take a brutally honest look at my own beliefs about Christ. I began to read the scriptures in earnest only to discover I was in good company. Among other people, His disciples, His enemies, His cousin John the Baptist, the religious leaders of the day, the non-religious leaders of the day, and the crowds that followed Him ALL asked the question: Who is He?
Both times I visited Israel, I had the chance to spend time in Caesarea Philippi, the place where Jesus discussed that very issue with His disciples. While there, He asked them two questions: (1) Who do others say I am? (2) Who do you say I am?
When Pastor Scott shared his personal story with me during our interview, he said that there was a time he realized that his own ideas of God and spirituality had no basis. “I invented God the way I wanted Him to be,” Scott said. “I thought, That can’t be a good thing, because if God is really real, I can’t invent Him according to what I want Him to be. I mean, He is the one who created me. I need to find out how He wants to approach me, how He wants me to approach Him. So I have to figure out if He has revealed himself to humanity in some way. Like, is one of these holy book really His revelation? What’s the story?” Scott began to read various texts, including the gospel of John. And he prayed a simple prayer: God, if You’re real, show me.
What a great place to start.
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“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
-Philippians 2:9-11
