God Becoming Human

I am the LORD, your God,
who grasp your right hand;
It is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I will help you.”
Fear not, O worm Jacob,
O maggot Israel;

There are two images in our first reading today that seem almost contradictory.  First is this wonderful image of God as a parent holding the hand of child — us.  What comes to mind is when my daughter was a toddler (and was exceptionally timid) facing something new and unknown.  She would stop just short of the room and not want to go in.  I would squat down beside her and remind her that I was going to be with her the whole time and that I wasn’t going to lead her someplace dangerous and I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.  Then I would take her hand and in we would walk.  What a wonderful image of God.  The comforter.  The one who fortifies and stands with us as we face our demons and the dark.  But then the very next line seems out of place:  O worm…  O maggot .  Gee thanks, God!  Now I think of my brothers taking care of me as a small one; who, although love me were frustrated at having to deal with their little sister; and here she is making trouble.  They were not quite so inventive with their name calling but they still took my hand and walked with me as I faced my dragon.

Seems strange doesn’t it?  To have God using name calling?!   God isn’t calling Israel, or us names.  There is a point to this passage but we must dig deeper than the obvious.   

First we need to realize that God is using a human interpreter to explain concepts that Isaiah may not have had the words for.  Have you ever learned another language.  Until you become fluent (and even then there can be trouble) you must give interpretation to the language you are hearing and speaking in your own native tongue.  Someone says “Привет”.  Unless you speak or read Russian you have no idea what is being said.  Somehow you find out its meaning but first you must have a word that is similar — Hello.  What if the language you know is more limited then the language you are interpreting?  You must come up with something similar and close enough to get the job done; but it is limited and is open to misinterpretation.  Old Testament prophets spoke for God.  But they had to find ways to express concepts that had no human form yet.  That is why prophetic language is so poetic and figurative.  Hosea, married to a prostitute, understood being used and the need to forgive over and over again.  And Jeremiah used everyday occurrences in his life to explain God’s message — potter and clay; gold being refined…  Think in terms of explaining a very difficult concept to a child.  You simplify the language.

So, that being understood we need to look beyond the obvious.  God is not saying that we resemble a maggot or a worm.  What we do resemble is the relationship of a human to a maggot or worm.  God is us and we are the maggot.  We toil and fret and live our lives day to day.  A better image for me would be an ant scurring around, working hard, trying to make sense of their limited world — believing it is all there is.  Humans can destroy an ant with a simple flick of our finger.  Humans know and can understand so much more, vast amounts, than an ant with a  limited brain could even take in.  Now in seeing us as the ant and God as us… A God who reaches down and worries about the daily lives of a simple ant that He takes our hand and walks with us; the passage makes more sense.  The passage opens up this wonderful sense of how much God really loves us.  Would you, as a human love an ant?  Reach down and help an ant in their daily lives?  Would you become an ant so as to explain how things work in the vast world still unknown to them hoping to give their lives greater meaning…  Would you seek to redeem their pitiful lives by walking with them, doing their work and feeling their pain…  Would you become so in love with the ants that you would enter into their world knowing that you would need to die for them?  That is what God has done for us through His Son, Jesus.  In a few days we will be celebrating God becoming an ant, human to do all I described.  Such great love.

So, I will take the two images and realize that God loves me more then I can ever understand.  This is what Advent is about:  appreciating and responding to something that we give lip service to every other day.  In the course of this day we need to think about our own arrogance.  How often we won’t even take the time to understand our own loved ones and interpret ourselves to them.  How we hold onto an expectation that if they love “me” they would do the work.  God could have easily done that to us.  But how impossible is it for us to become God?  God reached out to us.  Make advent about reaching out to others.  Putting them first.   Awesome challenge.  I remain, your servant in Christ, a mere maggot

Theresa