One of my favorite names for the Holy One is “Emmanuel,” meaning “God with Us.” We in the church world typically dust this title off around Advent. We read it in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, when the prophet predicts the coming of the Messiah; and in the New Testament book of Matthew, when the writer says, “Look! The Messiah has come!” There is a poetry to the passages that fit well with a season that lends itself to images of snow, deep greenery, soft yellow light, and a divinely warm and miraculous baby sleeping in the arms of a loving mother.

The Christmas images are beautiful… and I think that there is a part of us that needs them. The light and the warmth and the innocence draw us in. It is the purest expression of home– a place where shepherds and kings and angels kneel together and behold the sleeping Prince of Peace face to face. For a snapshot in time, there is a place where everyone belongs. We need to remember that home is possible.

This year, I find myself thinking of Emmanuel outside of the Advent holidays. 

There is a welcome chill in the air. It cuts through the record heat of summer, cooling sunburned skin and alleviating green plants from their labor of hydration. Emmanuel, God With Us, like the relief that fills my lungs and passes through my lips. Emmanuel, like the warmth of the sweater across my shoulders.

Our city has some of the highest per capita rates of homelessness in the nation. Folks sleep along the perimeter of the community garden– some on thin mats and sleeping bags. Others on cold hard-packed ground. Old bones and thin skin blistered by weather and neglect; the manifestations of poverty and addiction and disease. In the midst of such raw need, surely God must sleep here too. And, I wonder, if we truly believed this… would we allow it? 

As the days grow rapidly and noticeably darker, I need the light. So, I search for glimpses of the Light of the World. Immanuel, God With Us, bursting through the trees like the shifting golden rays of autumn. 

When news and photos reach me from my former state: large red buoys covered with metal spikes and interspersed with saw blades– anchored by concrete blocks and strung with underwater nets to prevent Brown bodies… children… mothers… fathers… infants… human beings from reaching the shore… Power, devoid of compassion, forgets that no one enters toothsome waters unless they are already drowning where they are. Surely where hands grasp for hope and parents grasp children struggling to breathe in khaki waters along the border of Mexico… If God is with us, surely God is in the muddied and bloodied waters of the Rio Grande? And, I wonder, if we truly believed this… would we allow it? 

The leaves are starting to turn. The organic patchwork underneath my feet, and the diversity of color everywhere I look is one of my most supreme joys. Emmanuel invades my heart like the beauty of changing leaves and the delight of crisp apples, tart grapes, and tomatoes off the vine. Taste and see the bountiful goodness of the Creator, indeed! 

When students returned to their classrooms this term, many of them would have found their faces erased from library and classroom shelves,  their experience and history omitted from textbooks and lesson plans, and their identities illegal to notice or mention. In classrooms across the country, there are packets of rainbow crayons, bright markers, and newly sharpened colored pencils that have been rendered completely useless– as these classrooms don’t see or acknowledge color of any kind. The trembling powers that be seem to believe that white will do for everyone. Surely here, under stark lights and in invisible corners where anxiety festers and tender hearts shrink away from themselves towards the darkest of thoughts. Here, in the cradles of society, where young humans are formed into whoever they will be. Surely Emmanuel, the teen God-human who ran away from the caravan and into the temple to authentically and wholly be who They were called to be– is also here, calling students name by name. And I wonder, if we truly believed this– would we allow it?

“Would we allow it?” is an odd question. But,how we read that question, as well as how we answer it, can tell us a lot about what we think about God and our neighbor and ourselves– as well as the intersections of those relationships. “God With Us” must go beyond what makes us comfortable and must pervade every part of our lives. If we wish to encounter God, we must look for the brokenhearted among our neighbors. If we are brokenhearted, then we know God is nearby. God is with us.