Christmas: Awe and Intimacy

Each Christmas I find myself coming back to one of my favourite books, 'The Relentless Love of Jesus' by Brennan Manning, which reminds me that true worship involves both awe and intimacy. 

Each Christmas I find myself coming back to one of my favourite books, 'The Relentless Love of Jesus' by Brennan Manning, which reminds me that true worship involves both awe and intimacy. 

Manning writes that, “God entered into our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable glory, but in the way of weakness, vulnerability and need. On a wintry night in an obscure cave, the infant Jesus was a humble, naked, helpless God who allowed us to get close to him.”

The baby Jesus is the object of more direct worship than almost any other period of his earthly life. The shepherds pay homage, the heavens break open and the angels sing loud praise. The wise men come perhaps expecting a King in splendour, or a humbling display of the supernatural, but instead they find themselves face to face with a tiny baby, in a shed. No fanfare, no pomp, just a little baby. And they find themselves worshipping him extravagantly, even at great risk to their safely. 

Christmas reminds us of the great paradox of true worship: if we want to understand the transcendence of God, we have to experience the immanence of Christ. Jesus does not come to meet us in strength, but in our weakness, he draws us close in love. Jesus reveals that God is not a strict judge who waits for us to mess up, but a tender loving Father, who runs out to meet our prodigal hearts. Jesus describes God as being like the Father of the prodigal son. Jesus said, “while he was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

We worship a God who reveals his strength by choosing to be born a refugee, into a genocide, with the nature of his parentage questioned. He reveals his strength by allowing himself to be tortured and killed by the very people he comes to rescue. Ultimately, with the cross and resurrection, we see how much God values intimacy with us. The cross assures us that we can enjoy the closest possible relationship with God, free from guilt and shame, free from having to earn favour with God through religion, free simply to worship. The resurrection assures us that because Jesus is alive and his Holy Spirit is living in us, it is possible for each of us to not just know about, but also to experience real intimacy. This is what Paul talks about as “Christ in me, the hope of glory.”

This Christmas, I want to worship in reality. I want is to come close to God in Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and to find myself flat on my face in wonder, but at the same time caught up and drawn close in the everlasting arms of the Father.

With every step we come closer, we find ourselves more aware of God’s immeasurable love for us, and also his beauty, power and holiness. When we realize that God wants us to worship him intimately with the whole of our lives, we are freed from compartmentalizing worship as what we do on a Sunday. Intimacy involves the whole of our lives, from the way we worship on a Sunday to the way we work at the office in the week. Intimacy involves real friendship with God, vulnerability and surrender. It involves obedience, transparency and a desire to encounter God with our whole lives.

Whatever style of worship we use, the goal is always to encounter God, to experience the liberating reality of intimacy. Some love to worship using beautiful hymns and liturgies that are thousands of years old, while others love to jump up and down to songs that were written five minutes ago. Some love to worship by celebrating the Eucharist with thousands of others, while other love to sit quietly on their own in the middle of the countryside.

While our model is important, it’s only important in the same way that a car is important if you’re driving from home on the way to a holiday. What makes a holiday is not the car, or the journey, even if the car is amazing and the landscape it beautiful. The point of a journey is that we reach the destination. Likewise, our goal in worship is always intimacy with God, to draw near to Jesus. To come close.

So, this Christmas, I want God to teach me how to worship him again. I find myself on the same road as those wise men: looking, searching, longing for more of Jesus, wanting to be humbled by both his majesty and his humility, I want to experience more of the reality of Jesus than ever before. 

Anyway, do throw in your thoughts on intimacy in worship below... I'd love to hear from you.

And, have a very happy Christmas!