On the Advent

We celebrate this time of year as the time Jesus -- God in the flesh -- came to earth to save us.

To save us.

From what?

What did we need saving from?

Don't give me the Sunday School answer that means nothing to you. Give me the answer that resonates in your heart. What do we need saving from? Do we need to be saved from a dire financial situation? Health concerns? A smaller house than we'd like? A job we hate? Something else entirely?

Let's phrase this another way: What is the ultimate problem in our lives that needs resolution? What is the biggest thing that needs fixing? Advertisers can tell you it's a thousand different things, but out of all those possibilities, which one cuts the deepest? Which one hurts the most? Which spot in our soul do we build the highest walls around, protect most fiercely? What is the sore spot that needs a salve? Is it really a material lack? Is it really financial?

Let's dig deeper -- why do we want all these material things in the first place? 98% of the time, if we're perfectly honest, it's so we can 'look good.' It's to keep up with the Joneses. It's to keep up appearances. But why do we feel this need to keep up appearances in the first place? Will anybody really die if we don't? Since the answer to that is 'no,' maybe the lack isn't money or things. Maybe we're just using the lack of money as a scapegoat, a cover story for the deeper thing we're really lacking.

Allow me to argue that the lack is soul connection. More specifically, love. Not romantic love (necessarily), but the deep love of a close friend or relative.

Did Jesus lay in the manger clutching a ten-step plan to get out of debt? Did God-With-Us hold in His hand keys to the latest high-end car? Did He bring us an interview for a less-crappy job? No? Then what did He come with?

Nothing -- except the heartbeat of God. The love of God, coursing through the veins that would one day be drained dry in an effort to communicate just how intense, how all-in, love is. He came -- to forgive our sins, yes, but to forgive our sins so that we could be reconciled with God. We know sin separated us from God, creating the void inside us to begin with. And we've tried to fill (or at least distract ourselves from) the void with money and prestige and sex and Netflix. But what we needed was not, in fact, money or prestige or sex or Netflix. What we needed was companionship, or, dare I say, love. Others might love us for a while, but the permanent, lasting love comes only from God and that deep, permanent love is our deep unspoken longing -- even if a lot of us haven't been able to pin it down yet.

The most important thing, the thing we lack, is a truly loving relationship, a deep connection and trust with someone. It's love and companionship that is our deepest need. Flash back to the garden, where God literally created woman because, in His words, "It is not good for the man to be alone" (Gen. 2:18, 20-22). The second person was not created solely for sexual benefits (though in the case of Adam and Eve, sex was certainly a part of their relationship), the second person was created so that the first person would have a companion. Someone to love and be loved by. God didn't give the man a million dollars or time-saving devices/apps or a vacation in the Bahamas or the CEO position of a highly-profitable international company. He gave the man what he really needed, whether he would ever have realised it or not -- a companion. A friend.

What, then, is our great need? What did we need saving from?

Our terrible, tyrannical, unspoken loneliness.





(This also implies that we -- especially any of us who call ourselves Christians/children of God -- need to show love to others/each other, not just throw money and a politely-veiled insult at them and hurry in the other direction, but that's a WHOLE different blog post...)
(Also, I'm not trying to be all holier-than-thou in this post -- I honestly have a VERY hard time believing God does truly even notice me let alone love me. I'm not trying to be preachy and it's not that I don't know how hard it is to even hope that God might love me too. It's SO hard, and honestly I'm having a hard time believing some of the things I've said in this blog post.)