DWELLING AMONG US

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. —John 1:14

In the story of the garden in Eden, Adam and Eve hid from the approaching God. Human sin had caused humanity to withdraw—even seeking to escape—from the presence and glory of God. But God had a plan to repair and restore this broken relationship.

God would approach humanity as a human being.

To overcome the human fear of God, He would, in Jesus, be subject to all the fears of what it means to be human. As much as we like to tell them to our children, many of the stories about Jesus are not neat or “nice.” Jesus lived a real human life, with all its dangers, threats, and fears—and more. “Terror surrounded the life of Jesus like great parentheses. At his birth, Herod pursued him with slaughter, and in his crucifixion, he shared the fate of the condemned slaves and others of low esteem. But Jesus was not contained by the terror, for at his birth and at his resurrection, messengers from God proclaimed for all who would hear: ‘Do not be afraid.’ ”* In this context, the “Do not be afraids”—and similar commands that Jesus taught, such as “Do not worry” and “Do not be anxious”—sound all the louder and reach deeper into the realities of our lives. Based on the existential “Do not be afraid,” these many similar commands constitute the wholistic life of faith, a life “not contained” by the fears that press themselves upon us. Because Jesus took on our fears, He sees and hears them in a different way and offers the healing and undoing of all our fears.

* Lee Griffith, The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 278.