Where is God?

Psalm 148, Luke 2:22-38

December 31, 2006

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

Every once in a while I read a line in a book that absolutely brings me up short. I began reading the book I got for Christmas this year, Resurrection by Tucker Malarky, and got caught by a throwaway line in a description of what the world looked like to a young woman in London in 1946 whose mother had been killed during the blitz of German bombs in World War II. As she is trying to rebuild her life and observing the destruction around her in London, she observes that “evidence of the Christian God was thin” in her world.

Whoa. I found myself thinking of Gaza, of Baghdad, of Mogadishu, of Darfur and wondering how the words of the angels of Christmas, how the predictions of Isaiah and Micah, how the celebrative words of so many Christmas carols would strike them, and how little evidence of the “Christian God” would seem to be found among them. How would anyone looking at the world in places like that this year think of this lovely story we told last week as anything but a fairy tale, of wishful thinking, of hoping against hope that God will do what we most desire and seem most helpless to make happen?

There are so many systems of belief in our world, so many religious, philosophical and scientific ways of understanding who we are and what the world means. Most of them have wonderful stories, deeply touching rituals, exciting discoveries of truth. All of them undoubtedly have something of God in them, whether or not they name the divine as part of their way of thinking. All of them are windows through which we can see our world and ourselves more clearly. Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, quantum physics, chemistry, Jungian psychology, Native American spirituality, all contain ways in which we can glimpse wonder and find comfort and joy.

So why do so many of us around the world, including some in all those places where evidence of the God we worship and celebrate this time of year seems thin continue to hold to this truth for our lives?

You certainly need to answer that question for yourself. Here is the way I have come to understand why I continue to believe, though I have had a lovers’ quarrel with the church my whole life. It comes to me in this story of Simeon and Anna and their encounter with the infant Jesus. Simeon took the child in his arms, a child like many others, like the two new babies in our congregation I had the privilege of holding this week or the one we baptized last week. But when Simeon took this particular child, Jesus, in his arms, he saw something he had not seen in other children. And he said, “O God, now you are letting me go in peace, for my own eyes have seen the promise of your salvation which you have prepared not only for us, but for all people, a light to reveal you to the whole world.”

You see, Simeon and Anna held a child. They did not discover a new scientific theory. They did not unravel a new intuition into the nature of reality. They did not lay out a new philosophical system. They did not develop a new set of spiritual practices which would lead them to perfection or holiness. They touched a child and were then touched by God.

You see, at the heart of Christianity is not a set of beliefs and requirements and theologies, though we do have those things, and not always to our benefit. At the heart of Christianity is a personal encounter with God, a touch of the divine in our lives in very specific ways. As Simeon and Anna predicted, in the life Jesus lived, in the words he spoke, in his specific encounters with specific people whom he healed or challenged or taught or called to work with him, in his very physical death and resurrection to life, he shed not just a candle flame, but a blazing light, an aurora borealis, if you will, a searing ray of sun, to lead all who would see into that personal encounter with the divine that can change not only their individual lives, but also the world. Because it has not happened in completeness yet does not make it any less true, or any less possible. The light remains, the invitation to relationship remains, the possibility of transformative encounter with God remains. We don’t have to wait for God to do something; God has already done something, personally!

The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing in the midst of that war in which “evidence of the Christian God was thin” urged us to “find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know; God wants us to realize [the divine] presence, not in unsolved problems, but in those that are solved.” The Psalmist called us to a similar reality today, to praise God not just for vague reasons, but because God has raised up someone who will lead the people to lives of praise. Because that someone seeks a relationship with us, inviting us into an encounter of love, of healing, of forgiveness, of power, of hope.

We praise God for the moments we are touched by the problems that are solved.

We praise God for the times we are touched, literally touched, by another and know comfort, healing, forgiveness, power and hope.

We praise God not just for moving rituals and intellectually stimulating ideas and amazing discoveries, but for calling us into a relationship, because, as Jesus said, God knows the number of hairs on our head, knows our names, does not see us as insignificant in the vast universe, but as worthy of attention and love from the one who created it all to begin with.

And Simeon and Anna remind us that we will continue to know God in those personal encounters and experiences of God’s presence close at hand, in solved problems, in babies, even in pain, as Mary would later experience as Simeon foretold.

As Christians, when we look for God, we must look close at hand and not just far away, not only in the mysteries of the universe, but for the amazing truths we know and understand and can touch, see, hear and love. You see, the promise of Christmas, of the Incarnation of God in flesh, is that God will continue to be present in our flesh and the very stuff of all the world around us. That’s where we can meet God, as Simeon and Anna met Jesus.

I heard last week about a Christmas song that is sung widely among Arab Christians and was sung this year in Manger Square in Bethlehem, in the midst of soldiers and walls and fear, a place one might say there was very little evidence for the Christian God and the Prince of Peace. It expresses so beautifully this truth about our faith. I don’t know the tune, but the translation of the words from Arabic goes like this:

When we offer a glass of water to a thirsty person, we are in Christmas.

When we clothe a naked person with a gown of love, we are in Christmas.

When we wipe the tears from weeping eyes, we are in Christmas.

When we cushion a hopeless heart with love, we are in Christmas.

When I kiss a friend without hypocrisy, I am in Christmas.

When the spirit of revenge dies in me, I am in Christmas.

When hardness is gone from my heart, I am in Christmas.

When my soul melts in the Being of God, I am in Christmas.

As we all seek continually for God in the new year, may we find God in relationships, in encounters with very specific good news of great joy, and may we live our lives in such a way that when others encounter us, they know they are in Christmas. Amen.