Do you remember times when you were split up into a couple of teams, maybe to play soccer or some other sport? When it happened to me, I would look around and see one or two individuals and think ‘I really hope they are on my team – if they are on my team I reckon we can win’.
In the game of life it seems to me that if there is a God, you would definitely want Him on your team. With Him on your team you would feel invincible. As a famous church billboard asked back in the 1970’s – what would you do if Jesus Christ came to Hawthorn? And someone scribbled underneath – move Peter Hudson to centre half forward (apologies if you are too young to remember the 1970’s!).
For some reason many Aussies have equated God with the tooth fairy or the projection of wish fulfilment. It somehow seems more rational for them to think that we are here by chance, cosmic orphans in a hostile world, who make it through as best we can before returning to our dust-like origins. Or maybe we are just agnostic, not knowing and doubtful that knowing is possible.
Well, for me, in my gut, I feel there’s got to be something more than that. As humans we are somehow more than blood and bone. We have life, we love life, we desire life to go on. Are those aspirations merely expressions of futility or do they reflect with an echo of some lost purpose and meaning intended for us?
That’s where Christmas comes in. God in a manger. Immanuel, God with us. Yes, it may be foolishness to the rational mind, but for those who believe it makes profound sense. We are persons and there is a Person who is creator and sustainer and who is our hope. This Person actually loves us persons, as a parent loves a child, and entered our world as one of us, to live out that love to the fullest.
God is truly on our team, the life-giver and lover of our beings. The team we are on may look like a motley bunch. They may not look too impressive in terms of winning any contests. They don’t have much in the way of power, clout, sophistication or public influence. But if God is on the team, then it’s the team for me. Other teams may look impressive, but when the crunch comes they are not going to cut it.
Christmas is a time to get on God’s team, while you can. We are eternally loved, weak creatures though we be. We matter. There is a destiny for us both here and now and beyond. Christmas opens the door. It allows us to glimpse the bigger picture of who we are and the future before us. It is why the angels said to the shepherds – we bring you good news of great joy!
Merry Christmas everyone! Jesus is here. God is with us. God is for us. What other team compares?