O Come, O Come Immanuel

I could hear him crying "Mommyyyyyyyyyyy." 
Pascal usually calls me Mama, so when that last aaa warps into a yyy, I know there are tears in there.
I was sorting through all the toys today, puttering around the house, upstairs, downstairs, and Pascal was more or less playing alongside me while I worked.  He's usually really content to do that, and doesn't get upset if I head downstairs while he's upstairs, or vice versa. He joins me when he wants to, and plays happily if he doesn't.
We had been upstairs together, and now I was down. When I heard him call for me, I called back a few times. "I'm down here, bud. Come to Mama." But he didn't. He called a few more times until it turned into crying.
So I ran upstairs and found him sitting on the top step, tears rolling down his cheeks, clutching two stuffies and a blankie.
"Babe!" I exclaimed, "why didn't you come to me?"

"I couldn't!" he sniffled, leaning his hot forehead against me.  I kissed it, and knew he was sick.


My poor little lamb. He was too weak to bring himself to me. He could only cry out.
That teary little cry just broke my heart.
He needed me, and he was crying out for me.

You know what we sang last Sunday?
It was the first Sunday of Advent, so maybe you sang it too - O Come, O Come Immanuel.
It's a song of longing; a minor-key cry.
It dwells in that needy space between pain and resolution.
It's a song to sing in the waiting.
It's the song we sing, sitting at the top of the stairs, clutching our stuffies with tears on our cheeks, "Come!"

But why is there any need for waiting? Any need for discomfort, for longing, for rescue? Didn't I just write about it yesterday - He is with us already. That's the whole point of Christmas - the arrival of Immanuel, God with us. So why the longing? Why the ache? How come we struggle along in the minor key?

Jesus friends asked the same thing of him (John chapter 11).
Their brother had died, and they had sent for Jesus to come heal him of his illness. But Jesus didn't come. He didn't come, and their brother died.
And Mary and Martha knew he could have, knew he could have saved their brother.  And their hearts broke, and Jesus cried with them, and went to the tomb with them.

And then (I love this part), Jesus prays. But it's such a funny prayer.
He says, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me," and then he adds - and forgive me, but I can hear a little bit of teacherly exasperation in this aside - "I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me."

For Him, the gap between spiritual and physical doesn't exist. He was born of the Spirit and the flesh, God is as evident and present to Him as the screen you're reading this on. But like the people standing around him, we only see the physical. We're born of flesh. We miss the glory, the surety of hope, the dazzling presence of God that He could see.

And then He keeps it simple and just speaks to the dead man, who was buried four days ago: "Lazarus, come out."

And Lazarus does.

And I don't know about you, but I bet Mary and Martha were Christmas-morning excited. I picture them unwrapping that undead brother faster than anything.  The hope they hadn't dared to hope for was here - life, where death had been.  Jesus had all the power to heal, even from death.

So, why had Jesus not come when they called? Why had he let them sit in their ache, in their longing and grief?

The answer is in verse 5 and 6. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Wait, what? He loved them, so he stayed away and let Lazarus die?

Yeah, he did.

He had more in mind than their temporary comfort.
He was going to give them the deepest surest proof that He was God.
He was going to undo death for them.

We're waiting too.
Waiting for Christmas, and waiting for Jesus.
And people are like - umm, if He loved you and has the power to, wouldn't He have come for you by now? Wouldn't He have saved you from all the suffering you're enduring?

The truth of Christmas holds fast.  Jesus isn't a distracted mother, ignoring us in busyness while we cry out for Him.
He has a purpose.
He's coming.
And he's coming to undo death for us.
And he waits ... because He loves us.

So.
Merry Christmas, friends.
xo.