Jesus Chooses Us
Blog post by Matt McCoy
5 minute read
Many of us entered into 2021 hoping this would be the year we got back to normal. We were all disappointed. Normal remained frustratingly out of reach.
I have friends who are teachers, and some of them describe this year as their hardest year of teaching. The students continue to be under extraordinary stress at home and their learning was severely disrupted during the quarantine. The teacher has a front-row seat for all of it. Parents, administrators, and students all want to pretend that we’re ‘back to normal’ but we’re not. It’s hard to prepare room for learning in an environment like this.
I have friends who are therapists, and all of them are at max capacity. When they share stories with me about having to turn potential clients away because there’s no room in their schedule, they tell me stories about the crying, the screaming, and the panic from people who are hurting and feel like they have nowhere else to turn. It’s hard to prepare room for healing in an environment like this.
My friends who are lawyers talk about how clients are more on edge. My friends who are athletic trainers talk about how their athletes are under more stress. Doctors, Hairstylists, and flight attendants talk about how people cry more often, and more easily. “Let every heart, prepare him room…”
If we entered into 2021 hoping that this would be the year we get back to normal, we were sorely disappointed. And if we were hoping the holidays this year would cure our anxiety and existential dread, through a steady diet of doing normal things again, we were sorely disappointed.
A month ago we celebrated Christ The King Sunday. We saw how, in this vision John had of heaven, the people heard the roar of a lion, and were told that the Lion of Judah was coming. They turned, expecting to see a lion, and what they got was a lamb. That is not normal.
We know that, during the time Jesus was born, the Israelites wanted a warrior who would kill the Roman invaders and give them their land back. They were looking, expecting to see a warrior, and what they got was a baby. That is not normal.
Look, I hope for peace for all of us, and I feel like the uptick I hear of people dying from opioids is a sign that others are looking for some kind of peace, too. But the source of my hope doesn’t come when we get “back to normal” by getting rid of our masks, or social distancing, or when we are returned to the parts of our lives that the coronavirus took away. We want the heroic actions of a lion or a warrior to fix these big problems, but what if what we get are a lamb and a baby?
Ultimately, my hope is found in the tender mercy of a baby, because that baby is God-on-earth with us. Because my hope is in something outside of me, bigger than me, and beyond me, my hope isn’t threatened by the madness of the previous year. My hope is as tender as a baby, as gentle as a lamb, and yet as strong as a lion.
And this Christmas we get to pause and remember that Jesus still chooses to be with us, especially in the places where there is room for him. So we find our hope, not in the fixing of our problems, but by preparing room for the Spirit to show up in our lives, regardless of how broken it might feel.
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