Wonder of All Wonders [Second Tuesday of Advent]

Jude 21 “But you beloved, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of Lord Jesus Christ, that leads to eternal life.”

I was 13 and I wanted to know God so bad. I wanted an inside track. I wanted to be sure that he could love someone like me.  He walked into my life wearing the skin of my basketball coach.  He gave me rides and fed me and taught me how to shoot jump shots.  He made me laugh and challenged me like a father would. And I learned something so precious about the mercy of God.

It comes to you disguised as your neighbor.  The one who steps in and takes care of you, the kindness of strangers, the hands of the one who gives you communion, the feet of the lady bringing your dinner. God’s mercy is infinite and never more present than right now in the beautiful ways He is meeting your every need.  And YOU, too, are that mercy, those hands, that kindness to others today. God is near. He hides himself in your husband and children and when you serve them, you become His love and mercy incarnate.  Advent teaches us the wonder of all wonders.  God is here and He is for us and all heaven is behind us, begging us to see the everyday miracle of God’s love and mercy in the flesh, standing right in front of us. The question is, has He come to us so plain and lowly that we fail to recognize him?

Bonhoeffer says, “And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly….God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as His instruments and performs wonders where one would least expect them.  God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak, and the broken.”