Christ: God with Us

It was a rotten day and I was in a rotten mood. R.O.T.T.E.N!

Oh. And it was all at Christmas time!

My relationships were messed up—by both my own choices and also by the doings of others. My heart hurt. My spirit slinked behind me like an unwanted shadow. My thoughts hissed, “Rotten Elisa.” Over and over and over.

I trudged to my bathroom sink to splash water on my face. Surely, I needed some cleaning up. But when I lowered the towel from my face, I still saw Rotten Me in the mirror looking back. I backed out of my driveway and caught sight of Rotten Me in my rearview mirror. Then I took in the reflection of Rotten Me in the window as I entered a store. Later in the evening, Rotten Me stared back at me from the reflection above my kitchen sink. Rotten, Bad, Ugly Elisa.

Ever been stuck in such a spot? It’s a tough place. A lonely hole where nothing good grows. The backside of hope. Oh, the pain! The self-condemnation! The loneliness of being cut off from others and lost in the dark! With all our beings we long to be rescued and for someone to dive down into the hole and be with us in our muck. To show us we’re not alone. To feel our feelings and really know us and be our best with us. And then, for that someone to help us up and out of our mess.

That first Christmas, it was right into this spot that God sent His Son to be in the rotten of the world. After Joseph learned that his wife-to-be was pregnant, and he knew he wasn’t the father, he may have slipped into his own stinky spot. In first-century Jewish culture, marriages were often arranged by families at birth or in childhood. Young girls became “betrothed” early into puberty, sometimes as young as twelve years old. Betrothal held the significance of our modern-day marriage and was only dissolvable by legal divorce. While the betrothal period lasted a year before the wedding, and consummation of the marriage was deferred until after the wedding, the couple was considered “husband and wife” from the moment of betrothal. Any violation of the betrothal vows held the same consequences as violation of the actual wedding vows. 

What would Joseph do? What should Joseph do? Imagine the hisses slithering through his thoughts. Matthew tells us that “because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19). Sort of a win, right? Except that really wouldn’t fix anything for Joseph. Divorce would have taken care of some legal issues but would have done little to still the turmoil in his heart; it would have done nothing to remove the muck and murk choking his spirit—wondering about Mary, struggling with apparent betrayal and loss.

In what was probably a fitful sleep, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and explained the whole situation. Mary was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. She would have a son. Joseph was to name Him “Jesus,” which means “the Lord saves.” The dream ended with a phrase that sprayed hope into Joseph’s heart —and into the most rotten holes in our lives today: “and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’)” (v. 23).

God with us. Right in the middle of our rotten. So we never have to be alone in it again. So we can understand that there is nothing we need to hide. There is nowhere we need to run. There is no one who knows us better. Immanuel. God came to be with us in our rotten—not to leave us there, but to provide a way out.

It’s so easy to forget this hope. We hear the hiss of how rotten we are. Our own stench causing us to question and doubt God. The hiss is loud and ever-present. God seems invisible. We decide we’re the exception to His expansive and unconditional love. But that hiss isn’t the only voice speaking. 

As we move toward celebrating the true arrival of hope in our rotten world, we light the final candle of the Advent wreath, the Christ candle. It symbolizes God’s gift of His Son to provide a light in the darkness and a way out of rotten. It reminds us that God stands before the mirror right beside us each day and declares His love for us—how He sees beyond our rotten to who He has made us to be in Jesus. New. Forgiven. Freed. 

Thank you, Immanuel, God with us, Christ with us. Thank You for being in our rotten with us and for lifting us to new life each and every day. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16–17

—Written by Elisa Morgan. Used by permission from the author. Click here to connect with Elisa.