The God No One Sees Coming
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There once was a man who found no place he would not share Good News, no table he would not join for supper, and no one he would not befriend, heal, touch, or teach. Then and now, suspicion about the irreverence of this man gives way to scandalous rumors and heated debates about who he really was and what he really did.
But don’t write him off based on what you’ve been told or go beyond the story he gave - everything we’re looking for is already there in a way we scarcely imagine.
NO ONE EXPECTED GOD TO BECOME HUMAN
When he returned to his hometown with unlikely authority and magnetism, he was quickly and indignantly recognized as the local carpenter's son.
As the story goes, this man’s message about the brokenness of everyone’s vision of God began to change popular opinions about him. Very quickly, everyone once so enamored by his winsome displays of authority came to hate him.
He crossed the line by claiming their attempts at self-justification were futile. He told them he could forgive their sins, a miracle only God could perform. Jesus, the ordinary carpenter from nowhere-Nazareth, even told them he was one with the God they thought they knew.
Jesus, the ordinary carpenter from nowhere-Nazareth, even told them he was one with the God they thought they knew.
NO ONE EXPECTED GOD TO DIE
His message could not be tolerated. The leaders agreed, conspired, and killed him. The only way to maintain control was to make a spectacle out of this enlightened nobody from nowhere. After all, he almost had the crowds - they were on the verge of making him the leader of the Jewish revolution.
But that is what thrusts the story of this man into an explosion of mystery and astonishment. He resisted every one of the crowd's attempts to crown him the leader of their insurrection. They would have made him the face of their hatred of their enemies. He wouldn't allow them to promote him for their purposes, to carry the Lord’s name in vain.
They would have made him the face of their hatred of their enemies.
He wouldn't wield the kind of authority they knew. After dying an unjust, brutal death, he was resurrected as the promise and the accomplishment of the reconciliation of all things. The King of the Jews defeated death instead of the Romans. He became atonement instead of reforming the atonement system.
The King of the Jews defeated death instead of the Romans.
NO ONE EXPECTED GOD TO BE HOMELESS
Yet, he didn't have a home. He didn't have a bed. He didn't have a table he called his own. The carpenter's son was welcomed by people of all kinds: tax collectors, Pharisees, children, prostitutes, untouchable lepers, mothers and fathers, blue-collar workers, average-joes, extremists, down-and-outers, moral failures, and moral-high-ground-ers. He honored them as people who matter, delighting in them and sitting at their tables, sharing the light of life through his words in their presence, in their space.
Jesus is the hospitality of God. He is the ‘God Who Comes’ as he's named in Revelation 4:8 - not the God who waits for you in an ivory tower or top floor office guarded by secretary and security. He is the God no one sees coming.
He made our home in him by making his home in us - right where we least expect to find him. Maybe Jesus didn’t have his own home because he so longed to dwell with us. Maybe instead of striving to become better hosts, freedom is found in celebrating with fellow guests - in whom God has already happily found residence.
Jesus is the hospitality of God. He is the ‘God Who Comes.’
GOD MADE OUR HOME IN HIM BY MAKING HIS HOME IN US
If we learn anything from the incarnation - the act of God becoming human to dwell with humanity for one-way, once for all reconciliation - it's that hospitality isn't about being a host but about being a guest.
We don’t see God coming because it is a great paradox. God, the ultimate and universal host has become our guest by becoming human to live in our world, die our death, and live in our bodies by the Spirit. This is the scandal, the stumbling block, the folly of God: perfect, infinite Love graciously becoming one with broken, mortal humans so they can eternally call God home.
The invitation of God is and has always been to come home because that is where you belong. The life of Jesus sends the world the message that God isn’t a God of improvement spirituality or tough love. In Jesus, coming home means resting in the hard-to-believe truth that it is God’s delight to love you, his children.
The life of Jesus sends the world the message that God isn’t a God of improvement spirituality or tough love.
GOD IS WITH US
The God no one sees coming is the God who dwells with us even now and evermore. If you can’t perceive God, maybe you can doubt your perception instead of his presence. Question who you think God is if you can’t trust the God you think you know. Be free of the god you are working to the bone for and lean back into the God who has come to make his dwelling with and in you.
Question who you think God is if you can’t trust the God you think you know.
Remember, you don’t have to earn your keep or your entry. Rest and be at peace, for you are already unshakably the desire of the one who is love and who has made and sustains all things.
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