God Among Us

    With hair whipping in the wind like an unfurled flag, the child runs freely.  

Every ounce of humanity is focused on the brief autonomy of childhood. The

squeals of glee quickly turn to moans of pain as the child trips, falls, and

tears flesh from exposed knee, mixing blood with dust, and tears with pain.

This may be the child’s first encounter with this manner of physical pain.

But it certainly won’t be the last.



    Jesus surely experienced physical pain as He grew. No child is immune to it.

And Jesus was fully human while fully God. He came here to become one of us,

and that meant the emotions and the shortcomings of the flesh that go with the

experience. As He grew to become a master carpenter He must have felt the

bruises that were lay down by the misdirected hammer, and the gashes caused

by the errant chisel.



    As God, He knew what each of us must endure, but as Jesus, He could FEEL

what each of us must feel. He came to know the pain of the flesh, the heartbreak

of rejection, and the sorrow of loss.



    Remember Lazarus? Jesus could have healed him before death took Lazarus

into a tomb. Jesus could have healed Lazarus with a single word, from afar. But,

He chose not to. He visited the grieving family and friends, maybe so He could

experience grief at their side. And He raised Lazarus while in the company of

those mourners, and became exuberant with them as Lazarus left the grave!



    Jesus was more than God in the flesh; He was truly Emanuel in the purest sense.

He didn’t come to visit, He came to experience first-hand.



    When Jesus went into the garden to pray, He felt a new pain. Something He

had seen though-out man’s days, since the banishing of Adam and Eve. When

He accepted the cup, He took upon Himself the sins of the...