Yesterday, (Return to Lodebar) I wrote that Jesus suffered not only the cruelty and pain of the cross for us, but also the aloneness. How can we really understand someone else if we do not walk in their shoes? You cannot imagine what it feels like to lose your mother or your father or both, until you actually do so.

Who came up with the idea of closure? It is absolute nonsense. There is no closure and time does not heal all things. Gravestones are not the end. If they were, why do we return to them? Time teaches us to live with the scars.

Who understands poverty better than the poor? It is not something you can imagine. Understanding poverty, prejudice, rejection, etc. come from living it. My friend of thirty years has MS. His better half also has MS. They understand each other's frustration, pain and embarrassment better than anyone else, without MS, ever will.

Hebrews 14:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.

The Godhead decided that Jesus would be tested in every respect as we are. Writing about the aloneness Jesus felt on the cross yesterday was an unfolding personal revelation for me. I have heard the beautiful story of the Jewish son building a house for his bride, but it is his father who decides when the house is ready. Still, that and the quick answers people give me regarding Jesus saying that only the Father knows when Jesus would return, (Mark 13:32) have always been unsatisfying. The idea of Jesus increasing in knowledge (Luke 2:52) has also puzzled me.

Two words have really helped my understanding, for us. I understand that first and foremost the intent of Jesus was to fulfill the Father's will, but the Father's will has always been restoration through reconciliation.

Athanasius (298-373, eventual bishop of Alexandria) said that Jesus knows as God, but is ignorant as man. Being all knowing is one of the characteristics of the Godhead. Not knowing; questions without answers, mysteries, ignorance is the domain of man. I wonder if we are not most ourselves when our heart breaks for someone else and we ask God why? Heartbroken and frustrated Job questioned God, and yet God said Job was righteous, i.e. in right relationship with God. Our questions don't upset God. Did Paul not say we see through a glass darkly?

What did the industrial revolution do for humanity? What does technology do for humanity? What has science done for humanity? I still remember marveling as I drove across Texas while talking to my wife in California on a little plastic phone. Incredible!

Do we dare compare what the incarnation has done for humanity with science? How can we? For us, Jesus became a man, and like us, according to Luke 2:52, he increased in wisdom and in years, just like you and I do.

The incarnation, however, is the complete opposite of technological progress, advancement, elevation, pride. The incarnation, God in man, Jesus Christ, was an act of condescension and humiliation, for us.

God set aside God's divinity to take on the nature of man. Think of it, God, the creator of everything decided to walk in our shoes! In Jesus Christ God felt our aloneness, our struggle with MS and every other pain and sorrow that is a consequence of our broken relationship with God. How can we compare this to anything else in the universe?

It is Christmas Eve. Some of us are hurrying home with last minute gifts. Some of us are just trying to get warm and most of us are somewhere in between. Like you I am riddled with questions. Whether or not Jesus Christ was born on December 25th is not one of them. I don't care. What is important to me is that God came in humiliation, not grandeur, to suffer and die so I would know I am not alone, so I would know I am loved. That is the gift of Christmas. Like all gifts it can be received or rejected, but it is God's gift for us.