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This blog is from 24 December 2012

Blogging through Advent 19

God is with us

Holy Trinity Huddersfield, 23 December 2012

Today we had my least favourite Christmas song in church,  Away in a manger. I know, it’s traditional, but I think it is also wrong. The lyric goes like this:

I love Thee, Lord Jesus
Look down from the sky

A number of years ago there was a song made the UK charts, ‘From a distance.’ It talks of a remote God looking down on us from far away. I think this idea is short of what the Christian experience should be. We don’t experience God as remote, but a God who is present with us in the details of our everyday lives.

Not that Away in a manger is that bad. The last verse continues:

Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever
And love me I pray

The prophesy of the birth of Jesus in Isaiah speaks of  Emmanuel. The name means ‘God is with us.’ God is with us. God the creator and sustainer of the universe did not stay remote but became a human. When we complain to God, “You don’t understand,” he replies, “Yes I do, I’ve been there.”

So when we celebrate Christ coming we celebrate God being near to us. Ask Jesus into your heart this Christmas, whether it is for the first or fortieth time. God wants to have a relationship with you, to be close by you, this is the Christmas message.

May God bless you his Christmas and through the new year.