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December 19, 2007

Where is Jesus?

Imagine Christmas was a hit! The cast and crew had so much fun, and we really pulled it off. The stage looked glorious, the dancing was beautiful, the acting was hilarious and inspiring, and the music was the icing on the cake! From the audiences' perspective, you never would have known what took place during our final show. In the middle of the production, baby Jesus was missing! Oh, no...what would Mary take on the stage? We all panicked, searching hi and lo for Jesus. On cast member even went so far as to call a neighbor,near the church, to bring another "baby JEsus". All this was taking place backstage, while the show was going on, but to our dismay Jesus was MIA! Yikes....didn't He know that it was time to take the stage? Didn't He know how much we needed Him? At the very last nanosecond…Baby Jesus was found! He was there all along, we just couldn’t see Him. He took the stage, along with Mary, and the show went on.
As I was reflecting on the events of the evening, I recognized that the missing baby Jesus seemed a bit like real life to me. How often is it, that we really feel like we need Jesus, but we just can’t seem to find Him? We search everywhere, hi and lo, meanwhile…life is going on (just like the show). Sometimes, we may start to panic as we cry out “Jesus, where are you?” Other times, we may even try to put something else in His place, something that will give us a temporary fix, but not a lasting fix. Then, at the very last moment, He arrives on the scene, and we find out that He was actually with us all along. We serve a last minute kind of God! It got me thinking, historically speaking, that we know story after story, about God always being there. We know it is true because we can read it in His word, but sometimes we refuse to believe it, because we can’t feel Him. Or we can’t comprehend how He could be there in the midst of awful circumstances and not intervene….the fact is my friends…..we need to have faith! Hebrews 11:1 says “Faith is the assurance that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” (NLT) We need to have faith in “EMMANUEL (God with us)” because He was there, He is here, and HE will always be!