here with us

It's still a mystery to me
That the hands of God could be so small
How tiny fingers reaching in the night
Were the very hands that measured the sky

~Here with Us, Joy Williams

This song plays in my head all throughout the year.  Reminding me, it was not just a baby born that night.  It was not even just a baby with special favor granted over him.  It wasn't even just a baby with prophetic gifts or destined to be a great teacher.

This baby was God.

The God before whom Isaiah fell, covering his eyes from the blinding light and cried out, "Woe is me!  I am a man of unclean lips!"

The God that placed Moses in the cleft of the rock, so that he saw God's backside--and his face glowed so much so that the people begged him to cover it up.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  The God that brought Moses and the children of Israel out of Egypt.  

The God that slew thousands of Egyptian firstborn.  The God that struck Uzzah dead for disobedience.  The God that killed the priests that disrespectfully offered strange fire.

The God that strengthened a shepherd boy to kill a giant with a stone and a sling. The God that enabled Gideon's few hundred to wipe out thousands.  

You don't mess with this God.

And yet, for the sake of love, He allowed Himself to be born.

He could have come in all His glory, as a King--and we would have been forced to honor Him!  He could have come and been given all the glory that He so muchly deserves from His own creation--us.

But He came and was born.  A helpless, weak, tiny baby.  Born to one of the poorest of the poor.  In the depths of the lowest of the low...in the midst of animals, dirt, grime.  He was placed in a feeding trough, when He is accustomed to a shining, white, glorious throne.  

But He chose for it to be that way.

He wanted to be here with us.

...how how He loves us...