December 13

For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hood of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13

My goal through this entire Christmas devotional has been to help us see Jesus not just as the tiny baby in a manger but as the Living God. How beautifully Isaiah portrays God not as an uninvolved deity, a Creator who distances himself from his creatures, leaving them to fend for themselves, but as a God who is personable, who actually holds our hands.

And knowing how difficult it is for us to grasp the reality of such a God, he comes to us a baby. Remember Paul says, "In Christ dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." The baby is the same God whom Isaiah says takes our hand and calms our fears!

The Christmas infant's hands--God's hands--would one day hold the children, touch the lepers, put spit on the eyes of a blind man, drive the money changers from the temple. They were destined to suffer rthe nails that held Jesus to a tree. And Isaiah says this same God reaches his hand to us with comfort and joy.

Thanks to Jesus, through faith we may grasp God's hand.

Father, we will never understand all of this. How can you be Father and also Son? Yet Jesus told us he and you are one, and we believe him. We need you desperately, and so in Faith we take your outstretchewsd hand. Amen.