Christmas Eve 2022

During Advent, we remember each week that Jesus came as our Hope. He came as our Joy. He came as our Peace. He  came as Love Himself. And on Christmas Eve, we light the Christ Candle – Emmanuel – God with Us. This year I’ve been pondering, just WHO is with me? And I’m struck most by this name: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Resurrection LIFE is with us and came to be IN us.

Do you have conversations at 4:00 in the morning with the Lord? I do. Often. Maybe because that’s when my house and my heart are most still. Here’s how this one went. He said, 

Life is always in My Image.

Death is always in the enemy’s image.

I always breathe Life in. 

The enemy separates and takes life out.

I conquered Death. Death no longer has its sting because of the Hope of the Resurrection. I turn the Vally of Achor (devastation) into a Doorway of Hope.

What is the Hope? The Body and the Breath WILL be united again. Resurrection.  

My Breath of Life breathed into the Body.

I AM the Resurrection. In Jesus, I brought the Body and the Breath back together. Forever. And now YOU are part of My Body.

That IS Resurrection. The Breath and the Body Reunited. That’s why Ezekiel had to *speak* to the dry bones. Hear the Word (the breath) of the Lord.

My Breath recreates you out of dust. I reversed the curse, literally. 

Now the Word has come and dwelt among you and now dwells IN you richly.

And THAT my friends, is why we celebrate Christmas! 

Here’s the thought that has been new for me this year: Resurrection didn’t happen first at Easter. Easter is what Jesus DID. Resurrection happened first at Christmas – because Christmas is who HE IS. And WHO He is always precedes what He does. 

When He revealed himself to Martha as the Resurrestion and the Life in John 11:25, He had not yet raised Lazarus or been raised at Easter. He was speaking about His identity, not His activity.

Why does this make a bit of difference? Because if Jesus is only the Resurrection because of something He did – of a miracle that happened TO Him –  then I have to wait with my fingers crossed and hope for the same miracle to happen TO Me. But if Resurrection is WHO HE IS – in His very DNA – then I can bank of His same nature and character to overflow in me and to me and through me because I am IN Him and He is IN me. 

So this Christmas, think about the fact that the One who has come to be with us didn’t come only to comfort, (although that is a huge part of it!). He aslo came as Resurrection Himself. Think of every dark, dead place that needs His breath:

Your work.

Your family.

Your provision.

Your emotions.

Your very heart.

The Resurrection and the Life has come. Come to be With you. Come to be In you. Joy to the World!

It’s a little after 3:00 in the morning. The Lord and I do a lot of our visiting around this time – after the baby is fed and the house is quiet.

It was a morning like this several months ago, right before my son was to arrive. This is how our conversation went:

Lord, my friend Jana talked about my baby “rending” my body. That word sort of stuck out to me. Like I thought birth was just this natural bodily function and she was talking about tearing. Why do women get torn twice? The hymen on the way in and the body on the way out?

The hymen is torn so life can be created. Just like the veil into the Holy of Holies was torn. An invitation to Intimacy. You can come into my Presence to be with Me.

The body is torn (in birth) so life can be lived. Just like Jesus’ body was torn. So I can come into You. 

Lord, why both? Why is that necessary?

Because I did BOTH parts. Just like the covenant with Abraham. In Genesis 15. I passed through the torn offerings for both of us.”

Weeks later, after I’d had a C-scection, (which was NOT my original plan!) I was talking about the whole experience with Jana.

She just said, “Listen – when a baby comes, you’re going to get split: This way or this way” – she gestured vertically and then horizontally. I know her hand movements indicated natural birth or C- section. But in that moment, I saw the sign of the cross.

It hits differently when you hear the Lord say, “This is My body broken for you” after your body has been broken to let someone else live.

And what else was I remembering from when Jesus’ body was torn? Water and blood. That’s right. Just like birth.

I don’t know if these dots connect for you. But as I ponder these things I keep seeing that He has written the Gospel in our very bodies. Signs and symbols that point to this amazing Life Giving God.

It’s December 1st – the time to start all good Advent series! But this Christmas season, although I’m thoroughly enjoying reading my devotionals, I also want to capture some of the musings I’m having with the Lord.

I had a baby this year! For the past several months, my life has been full of bodily functions, birth, feeding and all things infant. So it hits a little differently when I think about The Word becoming flesh. God Himself came down – the Living Word that created all things – and burst into our world through…. a vagina? Wait, what?

What if that was supremely intentional, not just functional? What if that means that as women, He sees us as more than egg cartons?

What does it mean in Genesis 3:15 when it talks about the woman’s seed? Physiologically, women don’t have seed. They have eggs. Men have seed. Yet God specifically promised that her seed would crush the serpent’s head. Could it be that the seed of the woman is the Gospel itself? That the nature of our Good God and the Good News is written in our very frame?

Before you cry, “Heretic!” I’m not  talking about “The Divine Feminine” or “God is Woman.” But I am pushing against the general “mankind in the image of God” conglomerate. That’s not what it says. It says “male and female created He THEM.” That means that the female uniquely and distinctly reflects the nature of God in a way that is different from the way a male does.

Heck, salvation is summarized, “You must be BORN again.” Being born of the Spirit is a distinctly feminine image of God. Men don’t give birth. Women do.

So this year as I ponder the meaning of Christmas, surrounded by diapers and wearing baby spit, I want to look at what the feminine image of God looks like and how He sent the revelation of Himself – the Resurrection and the Life – through the body of a woman.