All who are thirsty should come to me! All who believe in me should drink! As the scriptures said concerning me, “Rivers of living water will flow out from within him.” (John 7:37-39 CEB)
Sometimes I believe we confuse the second coming of Christ with the first. We jump right to the book of Revelation to see Christ return as the victorious king, judging the world and establishing a new heaven on earth. We forget that we are still living in the reality of the first coming, when God’s son came to Planet Earth, not as victor, but as victim. He came as a baby thrust into the experience of the oppressed refugees of the world. And, as Savior and suffering servant, Jesus continues to show up in the world’s places of pain. We have a God who identifies with the slave chained in the hold of a ship, the Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, the sick child shivering with malaria in South Sudan, and the soaked Syrian refugee family anxiously clinging to rescuers as they clamber out of a collapsing boat along Greece’s shoreline.
We like to focus on the miracle of the resurrection. Frankly, resurrection is not a big deal for the God who created the universe. Jesus wasn't the first resurrection anyway; remember Lazarus - as well as a few others along the way? To me, the greatest miracle is not the resurrection, but the incarnation. That’s scandalous love!
In light of all of the atrocities going on in the world around us, many of us ask ourselves, “Where is God?” We often say, “Somebody ought to do something about that.” Well, let me tell you – God has come down to do something about it, and you are the somebody he is going to do it through! Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21 CEB).
You may be thinking, “God surely doesn't mean ‘me.’ What could I do? It would only be a drop in the bucket at best.” That’s another great strategy on the part of darkness. Evil will always try to convince us that we are powerless, that we can't change anything. But Jesus says, we have full access to the unlimited resources of God, to “rivers of living water.” As Jesus followers, “can’t” shouldn’t be allowed in our vocabulary.
You have heard it said that the only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing. It’s true. We have been the recipients of God’s scandalous love; now, go and actively live it out on behalf of others.
There is still time to join Ginghamsburg and our United Methodist partners this Christmas in the Beyond Bethlehem initiative to serve the global refugee crisis through Advance #3022144. Free resources are available at cokesbury.com/beyondbethlehem.
This blog was adapted from A Different Kind of Christmas: Devotions for the Season. (Abingdon Press, 2012).
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Mike Slaughter
The Rev. Mike Slaughter serves as senior pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio. He blogs at MikeSlaughter.com, from which this post is republished with permission.