#horrible-ize

Thinking up the worst possible outcome.

Maybe even two or three or more ways that it can go wrong. And then getting stuck thinking about them.

It’s one of my least useful skills.

Especially when it comes to imagining how someone is going to respond to something hard. Or how a difficult situation is going to work out.

If you’re like me, then you know how this “skill” can really run you through the wringer. Long before anything has actually happened. Much less anything bad.

One of the worst ways that this plays out? With other people. Especially people we don’t really know. When we have to rely on what someone has told us about them.

Probably the most obvious (and most damaging) example of this is with God.

Here’s why I say that. We live in a culture that’s created a lot of versions of God that are horrible.

And it’s not just people who supposedly hate God. Some of the people who proclaim their faith the loudest proudly show off their petty, vengeful, resentful, hateful versions of God.

So it’s really no surprise that even people who don’t horrible-ize things imagine the worst possible outcomes from any interaction with God. They’ve been given every reason to get stuck thinking about God that way. They’ve been given every reason to stay away.

Except the truth.

Today’s Gospel (Matthew 1:1-25) gives the names of the Son of God – Jesus and Emmanuel.

Jesus means “God saves.” It tells us what God will do through Jesus, and how God works.

Emmanuel means “God with us.” It tells us who Jesus is, and what’s in God’s heart.

That’s the truth about God. How do we know that’s really the truth about God?

Because that’s what plays out in the Incarnation. In the pattern of redemption that runs from Christmas through Good Friday to Easter.

God saves. And He does it by being who He is, by being God with us.

The thing to know is how God does it.

God doesn’t save us begrudgingly. God isn’t the God of “if-I-have-to.”

God doesn’t save us judgmentally (although some of God’s noisiest alleged followers want Him to be). God isn’t the God of condemnation.

So how does God do it?

Isaiah tells us in the first reading (Isaiah 62:1-5), and it has zero to do with anything about what you and I have done. Or how far we’ve wandered. Or how much we don’t fit in someone else’s messed up version God.

Here’s the truth. And it’s the source of the joy of Christmas.

God looks at you and loves you.

God looks at you and gets excited about being with you.

God delights in you.

This Christmas, may God fill your heart with the joy that comes from knowing just how much you mean to Him.