Have you ever felt desired by someone else? I don’t mean sexually per se. I mean that knowing that comes from friendship where you feel fully seen by the other person. In a world of over-connectivity, we find ourselves lonely because we often fail to give our full attention to one another. Desiring someone’s presence, to where nothing else matters, and feeling that desire from someone else is almost a fleeting experience. All of this to say, when I say that God desires to be with you it is hard to fully grasp how wonderful and powerful that is. God desires to be with you and he desires that you share in that desire.
There is a grand narrative in scripture that is the forest often missed because of our fascination with the trees. From the first pages of the Bible to the last, there is a narrative of God’s desire to be with his creation, be in relationship with us, and even go to the extent of doing everything needed for us to return to this divine relationship. At times we have made the Christian walk so much about what we get out of it (heaven) that we have missed the core of the Gospel: God wants to be in a relationship with us to the extent that he will do everything he can to create a way.
When we open the pages of the Bible, the first chapter puts on display who our God is and his awesome power. Humanity, male and female, is the highpoint of his creation as his image bearers. The next creation story places humanity at the center point of God’s good creation where Adam is the object of God’s attention. The relationship between God and creation is drastically changed because of Adam and Eve’s sin. God does not give up on his creation though. Without going into the full details throughout Israel’s history, God chose a family to bring about redemption of his creation. The problem is that this family was part of the problem God was trying to fix. God never fully gives up on redeeming his creation and continues to be present. Eventually, he makes his presence fully known to the world through the one who would make a way for the world to be redeemed, Jesus, called Emmanuel, “God with us.” Jesus promises to always be with us through the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Bible closes with God’s holy city coming down to his creation where he has made “all things new” (Rev 21:1-5). There is no temple in this city because God and the Lamb are present there (21:22).
There are hundreds of places we can go to showing the need for God’s presence and how God’s presence makes a difference in the life of Israel. The overarching point is that without God’s presence, we are nothing. Without God’s presence, we will fail. Without God’s presence, we are in hell. It is God’s presence that makes the difference in this life. Above all else, we should pursue God’s presence. The image of God in Jesus Christ is one of reckless abandonment in pursuit of reclaiming relationship with creation.
Spend a moment in reflection on this theological statement: God – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – live in an everlasting divine community together. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, stepped down from the divine community to meet us where we are to raise us up with him in his Resurrection into the divine community of the triune God.
God loves you so much that he desires to be with you to the point that he would die to make a way for you to be with him. As those who live in the reality of this divine community, we view one another differently than the world does (2 Corinthians 5:16-21) and therefore view the world differently as well. This narrative of God’s desire to restore us to his presence is the narrative we celebrate each week in our participation of the Lord’s Supper and the narrative in which we should read all of scripture. God is restoring all creation back to the good creation he intended it to be. We should be about that work in the church.