There are many types of communication available to us today.  Our attention is has been driven to the screen.  Big screens in theaters with surround sound have become the norm.  There seem to be a cold war on the size of our home TV with the largest and highest resolution monsters are the price of the war.  Even our computers have large screens.  Laptops have almost replaced the desktop but still, the screen is the important part. Phones have all but become ubiquitous in everyone’s pocket or purse.  My generation was a generation of the page. But now the younger generation doesn’t seem to have time for a real page-turner of wood pulp; generation of the screen.  All these screens have become the communication medium of choice.

Even in church, the pew bible has been replaced by overhead screens.  Even more and more the church shows up with their bible on their phone or tablet.  They look up the scripture for the day at that is the total of the reading for that day or maybe for the week.

I was reading the advent story this afternoon in a real in the hand bible with split leather cover and I discovered the greatest communication tool ever conceived.  Three words struck me: God with us.

God the eternal, everlasting, all powerful, all knowing, unchanging has a desire to communicate to me.  And His preferred method is not a screen, a video, or even a book.  GOD wants to communicate on a one to one basis.  Face to face.  Life to life.  God WITH, God in the same place as, God the companion, God the helper, God the united in hope and love, God the company we desire.  God with us. Not as an overbearing and authoritative being waiting to stab his creation with a lightning bolt upon any deviation of conduct.  He is so close, so united with us that any punishment would also hurt HIM.

Our sins, our transgressions, our willful steps of defiance always hurt HIM.  That is true empathy.  He feels our pain, our lives of quiet desperation.

We celebrate Advent, that gentile waiting, let us wait with our hearts and ears open and we will hear the heart of God because he is already here.  GOD WITH US, the greatest communication of all time.

What do you think?