SCRIPTURE:  The same was in the beginning with God. John 1:2 KJV

THOUGHT: We might understand the beginning of the gospel as Jesus in a manger, but John tells us “wait a minute!” The infant in the manger has a history before his birth; a history that predates any history of the earth we live upon. Jesus the Christ, Emmanuel, God With Us, was in the beginning with God.

We probably don’t stop to consider that often enough, and what it actually means to the whole story of God. Jesus, the Word, was there in the beginning with God. That means when he stepped into time, he left a throne behind, he left an unbroken fellowship within the Godhead behind, he left perfection behind. And why? So he could, in all ways, be like us, understand our needs, our pain, our hunger, our temptation, our dusty flesh. He could wrap our injured flesh around himself, breathe our air and walk our sod, as songwriter Chris Rice put it so poignantly. And then, amazingly, he would wrap up all our sin and its penalty as the perfect, sinless sacrifice.

In a small way, there’s something we can take from the story of leaving heaven behind because we’ve all left heaven behind on some level; felt the pain of separation from our Father in heaven. Jesus must have felt that very keenly – even though he didn’t know the forsaken-ness of separation due to sin until he hung on a rugged cross. But there were 33 years of separation from his heavenly home before that.

We know separation from God due to sin, but we also know the kind of separation Jesus knew. This world is not our home. I don’t know about you, but sometimes a longing fills my soul to just go home. Even the Christmas season, which is supposed to be about celebration of the greatest advent in human history, seems lifeless as I watch the world’s hectic pace and retailers throwing their latest marketing punch.

The bottom line is that when you’re separated from your beloved, the one you’ve been with since the beginning, you depend more urgently on whatever form of communication you have. I believe Jesus’ times of prayer were his lifeline, they were where he refilled his spiritual well and got some of that food the disciples didn’t know about. They were where he got the marching orders that allowed him to say, “but I do as the Father has commanded me (Jn 14:31).” They were where communion took place.

That’s a way in which we can imitate our teacher. Although we’re still separated from the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us, we have prayer too – the lifeline that connects us intimately to the Triune God. In prayer, we’re invited into heaven to refill our spiritual well, get some food that others don’t know about, and get our marching orders from the one whose will we want to see done. We have a place for communion with our beloved.

PRAYER: Oh Triune God, thank you for the gift of prayer that connects me to the source, from the beginning, of life and help and wisdom and shalom.