He stoops, He bends.

Turn to Me and you shall be saved.

I have this image in my mind of our Lord as the Good Samaritan. Beaten and wounded are we, robbed of dignity, robbed of divine life, broken by sin and weakness, laying bloodied and bruised on the side of the road.  

And many pass us by. Many are not moved to compassion by our wounds, by our fears, by our weakness. Many would rather ignore the brokenness.

But One Heart is moved.  One Heart is so moved that in fact, He stoops and He bends to meet us in the dirt.  And He approaches us with such mercy, touching our wounds so gently and lifting us from the dirt to take His place upon the horse.  I can see it in my mind’s eye—the way He so gently cradles our broken, fragile bodies in His healing arms. And He walks alongside us, bleeding and tending to our fleshly wounds.

He brings us to the safety of an inn. A home. A space to heal.

It is there that our Compassionate One pours oil and wine, pours His very own blood and water upon our wounds. Cleansing us from the bloody stains of our sinfulness, and bathing us in the promise of mercy and new life. He offers the Spirit, anointing our wounds with the oil of Love, to heal the places in our hearts that are so empty and alone.  He stoops and bends down to the very darkest places of our hearts, the places of which we are ashamed.  He promises light.

And we are tempted to list the reasons why He ought to move along, to let us wallow in the brokenness. Oh but in His great Love for us, He accepts our poverty as His treasure and silences our excuses with one Glance of His Sweet Gaze. 

He abandons the throne to become the Master of our Darkness. The humility of our God.

Once the darkness has been slain, it is Light which reigns. Piercing the dark. Penetrating the dirt. Stooping to the lowest space that we might know the heights of Love. That we might know the embrace of the Father. That we might know the eternity of Love. 

Divinity resting in the silence of a manger in the darkness of Bethlehem. The glory of which was known to a few humble men and women.

To have a God that stoops. That bends. That finds the dirt so incredibly worthy of glory. 

To have a God that enters our fleshly existence. That experiences infancy. That seeks our broken hearts to the bitter end.

To have a God that tabernacles among us. That dwells among men. Not for a moment, but for an eternity.

To have a God that is always moved to compassion by our darkness. That is never scarce with mercy, but eternally abundant. That is pleased to offer us a seat at the Father’s table though we enter in rags.

The God who is Master of my Darkness and Author of my Light. 

This is the God who comes to us this Christmas. This is the God whom we seek fervently and wait for vigilantly. The God whom we are utterly nothing without.  

He stoops, He bends, that you and I might rise with Him and know the face of Love for the whole of our lives.