I stood in a throne room once, in teary-eyed wonder at the majesty and the sheer magnitude of the history that thickened the air. It was surreal, but it was sterile; and I think of how many times I’ve been before a throne in prayer — it’s tear-stained and never sterile, but the history there is sweeter. How many countless hours I’ve poured my spirit out to parching – yet how often I still live in practical forgetfulness of His presence.
Too often, it’s the trappings of earth that clutter my mind and attempt to lay claim to my heart’s allegiance.
Christmas confronts the rhythm of everyday existence, fills up the pause with a pulse-stilling question: what will you do with Jesus?
Emmanuel is the initiative, incarnate rescue that cannot be ignored, so Christmas is coming face-to-face with the non-negotiable reality that holds logic and experience in even-handed demand.
C.S. Lewis said it well that when it comes to Christ — there is no middle ground between worship and spurn, and hundreds of prophecies chorus in agreement. Jesus fulfills every promise, defeating all human likelihood and statistic, proving every objection null, demanding decision with the proof of His Godship.
It’s the season for sending out cards and wishes of regard, but make no mistake: Christmas is the arrival of the One Thing all eternity hangs on – and He leaves no room for pleasant regard. What will you do with Jesus?
It’s the question most divorced from any option of neutrality, the question that throbs with the urgency of eternity, the question Christmas asks, the question of every day.
The scholars have summed up well the logical case for exclusivity, and hours before the throne have fleshed out the experiential case. Because I’m not simply repeating a catechism – I’m bursting with the joy in the glow of His presence — I know Him.
The promise of a child born to be the Mighty God, the Exalted One, finds precise fulfillment in the person of Jesus. And the promise comes full circle when Jesus said: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus demands decision. You must make up your mind what to do with Him.
Whoever does not gather scatters. How often my own mind is a scattering, wind-swept landscape of futile thinking, consumed by the world rather than with Him. I’d rather be before the throne than subject to the throes of my own idolatry, and as my prayer grows louder, the glow of the trappings fades —
Jesus — forgive my every day idolatry and consume me with the singular glory of You. Keep me wonder-filled and worshipful in the wake of your majesty.
Isaiah 52, 53; John 14
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