Thoughts on Baby Jesus and that time I slammed the car door and had "a moment" in the parking garage

Matthew 1:18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Last Thursday, my son, Aiden had a doctor’s appointment downtown at Lurie Children’s Hospital. Some of you know that Aiden has more than his fair share trips to the doctor’s office and hospital as we’ve struggled to diagnose and manage his asthma over the last six months.  We had received a series of text messages and voicemails confirming his upcoming appointments last week and…I misunderstood the messages.  We missed the long scheduled appointment with the specialist because we were in the wrong building. “Nope.” They said, “they could not see us even if we arrived late,” I was--ah--pretty upset.  So upset, in fact, that we could say that I had a moment in the parking garage of the hospital. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had something like a moment in a freezing cold parking garage before.  (I’ll spare you the pointed details). Suffice to say that It was the combination of frustration of missing the appointment, mixed with a particularly long to-do list this last week, a low current of sadness that I occasionally feel this time of year, the heaviness of the news…and suddenly, weariness just got the better of me.  As we strapped the kids in their carseats, I locked eyes with my husband and he knew I needed a moment.  Fiercely.

So what I really wanted to do? was crawl into a hole by myself but about the best I could manage was five minutes leaning against a concrete wall in a freezing cold parking garage. It was a moment of utter Advent.  I was just tired. All was not right with the world or my soul and I longed for the light to break in.

Advent brushes on something that touches our souls. Underneath all the festivity and the merriment of this time of year (and I do love this time of year), there is a longing for things to be made right in the world.  For things to be made right in our individual lives and in our families.  For things to be made right in our city of Chicago, in our nation, on our planet—for things to be made right.   Advent invites us to take a beat and acknowledge that we dwell in a weary, and broken world that is not merry and bright all the time.  It’s like the one church season of the year that actually gets that life is messy.

In the Christmas story we hear today, all was not right with the world either. You know the story: Joseph’s fiancé, Mary, is pregnant. Joseph is a no-drama, upstanding regular kind of good guy. If he walks away from the engagement, Mary be stoned according to the law in Deuteronomy.  If he divorces her, Mary could be thrown to the streets to a life of begging or earning a living through prostitution.  If Joseph stays, and adopts Mary’s baby, his life will probably forever be marked with scandal. Eventually, Joseph faithfully does as the angel commands him: He marries Mary, adopts the child as his first born son and heir and names him Jesus, Emmanuel or “God with us.”

God with us.  The word became flesh and dwelt among us.

You know, I think about the fact that Joseph didn’t name Jesus, “God with me” or “God with you” but God with us.  Part of me thinks it would have been easier if Jesus had been named “God with me.”  My own personal Jesus who is all about fixing my individual little life. Beautiful. God with me.

A colleague of mine told me a story a while back about her two year old daughter who was out for ice-cream with her grandpa.  As they prepared to cross a busy street to go to the ice cream parlor, her grandpa held out his thumb to the child and said “hold on.” The little girl took one look at her grandpa’s outstretched thumb, grabbed her own thumb of her other hand, and replied, “no thank you. I can hold my own.” That phrase sums up so much of who we are as a people and as a society.  No thank you I can hold my own.

We are rewarded for our individual effort and for our determination. We’re protective our personal space. We live in a society that values making something of ourselves. We apply this to our faith journey as well.  Pop Christian culture often talks about my faith, my relationship with God, God’s will in my life, my music preference in worship, my spirituality. But Jesus, the word made flesh, came, as Karoline Lewis says, “to remind us of who we are meant to be and supposed to be—people in community with God.”  The word became flesh and dwelt among us.  We are meant to be people who are oriented towards each other.  We need each other and God knows that.

I know we have only two more days until Christmas, but today, we are invited to stay with Advent for another day or two.  In Advent, we pause to recognize that Emmanuel, God with us, didn’t come to take away our brokenness and our longing, but instead to be with us in the challenges, the joys and the sorrows of life.  And as people of God, we are called to one another, to alleviate one another’s pain, to acknowledge that the journey can be difficult at times, to hope for one another, to surrender to the Holy Spirit and to be the hands and feet and heart of Jesus to one another.

God with us. 

With all of us.

Here together.

And here in our larger world together.

Community is not, as Karoline Lewis says, “our necessity, it’s our responsibility” as people of faith.  It is our calling. This is whether it’s community that is making sure that every walker and wheelchair has access to the sanctuary,  or community that sells fair trade coffee for the families that farm it in some far away land, or community that opens the church to the neighborhood support group meeting, to community that advocates for a more just world.  God with us leads us to open our hearts to our neighbors.

So last week, in that parking garage, while I was leaning against the concrete wall—ahem—collecting myself, Omar, sat in the car, and called my family (Gah! Called my family!?) who live in the same neighborhood as the hospital. And they ended up compassionately inviting us over, and watching our twins for a while so that the two of us could run out.  It didn’t fix the grief, or frustration or fast pace of life, but it strengthened my heart to know that God with us was simply there.

The sorrow and stresses of life don’t disappear with Christmas.  But when we come together like this, or with our loved ones, when we make room in our hearts, and when we share the peace with one another, and make music together, and light candles together, and eat meals together, build ramps up the church stairs together, we strengthen our immunity as people, we strengthen the holy fabric of who we are because God is with us. And that is a Christmas blessing to the world.