There are many answers to this question depending on who you were. But those who ask that question are probably speaking from a position of pain and loss.
As we enter into another brutal week of 2020, and ironically, the week of Christmas, I was reminded of the God who would enter the manger and who he would become.
Contrary to the idyllic representations of Jesus’ coming 2000 years, He came at a time of oppression, darkness, and despair. Creation was God’s prized possession, yet as he came, he found it in disrepair and far from his original design.
We would find Jesus not among the rich, powerful, and elite, but the broken, disenfranchised, and poor. He came not as a distant conquerer, but as one who dwelt among a people a pain. No greater is this exemplified than when they nailed Him to the cross, the ultimate embodiment of his taking on of humanity’s ailments.
Where was God in 2020 you ask? On the cross
Joseph took him down and he surely rose from the grave. But in many ways, even as we are winding down the darkest moment of 2020, He is still hanging there, bearing the pains and tears of a fallen world.
He is the man of sorrows, the suffering servant, near to the broken-hearted, and acquainted with our pain. Take heart, hearers of 2020, for your God comes not on a chariot, but with scars on his hands. They the emblem and the reminder to our dark times saying, “I am here suffering in your midst.”
