Devotional Advent Part 2

When you think about it, the English language has a lot of round-about ways to denote the off-ramp from life to death. For example, you might say, “So-and-so died.” Or you might turn to metaphors and euphemisms like “he kicked the bucket,” or “she bought the farm,” or “he shuffled off the mortal coil.”

By contrast, when you think about it, the English language seems to have a fairly limited number of ways to describe the on-ramp to life. Sure, you might say, “When I was born…,” or you might say, “When I came into the world…,” or “When I came out the womb…”. But from there the options begin to narrow down pretty quickly. I am guessing here but I suspect that the same holds true in most other languages besides English: people will often use metaphors to talk about the off-ramp from life but when it comes to the on-ramp to life, most of us stick to plain, non-metaphorical language.

This observation makes it all the more striking that when the Gospel of John describes Jesus’ birth, it turns to metaphor. Look with me at John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling (or literally in the Greek pitched his tent) among us” (NIV).

What does it mean that Jesus, the Word-made-flesh pitched his tent among us? And why did the Gospel-writer use this phrase – of all phrases – to describe Jesus’ birth?

The phrasing takes us back to a familiar story deeply embedded within the psyche of first-century Jews: the story of the Exodus. Remember, when the twelve tribes came out of Egypt, they didn’t live in houses or even sheds during those forty years in the desert. Rather, they lived in tents.

So, when the Bible tells us that Jesus pitched his tent among us, it means that Jesus the Word is just like us. If you pricked the baby Jesus, would he not bleed? If you tickled him, would he not laugh? If you poisoned him, would he not die? Of course he would. Why? Because Jesus is a person just like us. He is sympathetic to the frailties of the flesh and familiar with existence in a fallen world. Jesus does get us. How do we know he gets us? Because he has pitched his tent among us.

But there’s something else going on behind the phrase “pitched his tent.” For whereas it is true that all the Israelites lived in tents during the Exodus, it is equally true that Yahweh, the God of Israel, also lived in a tent, though we typically call it a tabernacle. As a tent-dweller God lived just like his people in the midst of his people. At the same time, God’s tent was unique, simply because, well, God is God, the very essence of glory, grace, and truth. Jesus pitched his tent among us as one who was fully man and fully God.

Our theology matters. Today there are some of us who struggle in our relationship with God because we see God as an aloof and distant being, far removed from the struggles and challenges that plague our everyday life. We appreciate Jesus as God but we struggle to really believe that Jesus was fully man. Others of us have the opposite problem. For such people, God is like our all-affirming, invisible bestie, a person with whom we can download and vent freely but not someone we really consider as holy, transcendent, or awe-inspiring. Such people may have a grasp of Jesus’ full humanity but they fail to grasp that this same Jesus is a holy and glorious being.

Maybe this Christmas it’s worth examining the theological tapes playing in your mind. “Which side of the spectrum do I fall on?” Do I err on one side by failing to be moved by Jesus’ humanity? Or do I err on the other side by refusing to be confronted by Jesus’ divinity? Our theology matters, you see, because skewed theology leads to and proceeds from skewed worship. This Advent, my prayer for you is that you would worship and rediscover Jesus not for you imagine him to be, but for who he really is – the one who pitched his tent among us.