Come and See

This afternoon, I scanned the 20-minute youtube yoga videos for the one that packed the most punch. I found one that promised a bucket load of good for my brain and body. I can have all this in 20 minutes? Great. I was ready for my tensions to lift and my mood to be elevated. I breathed slowly and deeply with the chipper instructor. It felt nice. However, the breaths didn’t go deep enough. Turns out the havoc of my sin runs deeper than any breath can reach. It was healthy for me to move my body and breathe intentionally, yet the instructor didn’t warn me that I would be left with a heart and body sick from sin, stuck in a world operating out of a curse. 

This advent felt like the light in my kitchen that’s about to die and flickering like a tired strobe light. All was not merry and bright. The world was not as it should be. I was not as I should be. Neighbors stand six-feet-apart and war over the issues that are near and dear to their heart. Separate camps. Isolation. Loss. I have friends choking in their marriages and looking elsewhere, only to be dismayed by the new chains around their feet. Other friends have recently found their Bibles quite dusty and out of touch with reality. They are leaving this narrow Christ and those who share in his small views. And who am I to point my finger at all that’s not right, when after ten years of marriage, I still say sorry like a snotty five-year-old and too often give Micah nasty “mean eyes” across a room. And how often I love people only when they love me back like I want. 

In a season that used to be idyllic for me, I can’t help but see the cracks in all the “cozy”. As a child, my heart was easily warmed by the baked goods and out-of-state cousins. And now these cracks are impossible to ignore. I can’t seem to push off the sadness I see in my reflection and in the faces of those I love. Addictions, loneliness, insecurity, and sickness, to name only a few. Bing Crosby’s voice and a video of a snapping fireplace play from my laptop, but the lament inside my heart pounds even louder. 

My husband just preached a sermon about how often Jesus invites us to “come and see” in the Gospels (you can listen here). Unlike all other religious figures and gods, God doesn’t stand aloof in the heavens, but personally invites us near. Taste. Touch. I can’t stop thinking about his invitation to the disciples, to the woman at the well, to Thomas as he reached into the side of Christ. He doesn’t drop instructions down from Heaven or send an angel to tell us what to do with the mess we find ourselves in. He sends His own Son as a baby, so that I might come and see God for myself.

If my eyes are only on the tree, my lackluster heart, and the present reality of the world, the holidays will certainly feel like a bruise being pressed. But if I accept his invitation to come, I just might see what He wants me to see instead: a gentle Father who doesn’t withhold good from his children, a humble servant without a home, a faithful friend to friends who turn their back on him, and a patient teacher who doesn’t tire of showing us yet again what He’s like. He came in a cradle, that we might take hold of Him forever.