“Every year we celebrate the holy season of Advent, O God. Every year we pray those beautiful prayers of longing and waiting, and sing those lovely songs of hope and promise. Every year we roll up all our needs and yearnings and faithful expectation into one word: “Come!” And yet, what a strange prayer this is! After all, you have already come and pitched your tent among us. You have already shared our life with its little joys, its long days of tedious routine, its bitter end. Could we invite you to anything more than this with our “Come”? Could you approach any nearer to us than you did when you became the “Son of Man”? In spite of all this we still pray: “Come.”

-Karl Rahner

Yesterday I was working with a pastor friend on their next sermon, focused on the incarnation. Been thinking about it ever since.

We need people in our lives. When a big life event happens, we naturally want to tell our friends. The same thing happens when tragedy strikes. If you’re old enough to remember 9/11, you’ll recall that we all found each other. Friends mark themselves safe during hurricanes and earthquakes. And, in my experience as a pastor, nobody wants to be alone when they die.

We need each other. Even the most introverted among us needs human contact from time to time. It’s how God created us to be.

In a sheer stroke of irony, social media has connected AND distanced us. Families torn apart because we feel like we can’t associate with certain others because we now know too much about their views. Insta and FB provide imbalanced intimacy at best.

And yet… here comes the Messiah. Messy, noisy, and high maintenance — like all babies are. It was a seemingly innocuous way to enter our world and save us. I couldn’t relate to a conquering hero who knows nothing of my struggles as a regular guy trudging and bouncing through the ups and downs of life but I can relate to a fully human, needy, and unassuming baby/child/man. His humanity disarms us, but his divinity is impossible to ignore. He is the Son of God, the word made flesh. The Savior has come, miraculously, to be with us.

Trudge and hop through life, but know you’re no longer alone. Someone has humbled himself and come along for the journey, knowing that our greatest need is someone else. It’s Him. It’s Jesus.

The question stands: is He invited?

Come, Lord Jesus.