God With Us: Unperverted Medievalism

"Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high, who humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in earth!" Ps. 113:5-6

"What is man that Thou are mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" Ps. 8:4

"[Jesus], being in the form of God, thought equality with God to not be a stolen prize, but made Himself of no reputation, and...humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Phil. 2:6-8

If there is one great ignorance today that every Christian must be embattled against (in word and deed, art and activity), it is the prevalent yet unspoken assumption that God (if He is there at all) is detached and disconnected from us and our lives. Pay close attention to the popular mindset of western culture: if the average person believes in God at all, it is usually a God that is more distant than the furthest star; He is far and away, and thus is small. He may be great, and even good; but He is ultimately inconsequential (and perhaps a bit distracted). This accounts for the strange way in which God is typically "handled" by most people (in and outside of the arts): the friendly buddy, the deadpan business exec., the booming voice in inaccessible light, etc. Regardless of the form, the theme remains: distant, inconsequential, or both. In a kind of perverted medievalism, we believe that we are far removed and sequestered off from God, that the only worse spot than us is the icy fires of hell. God is over "there" and we are over "here" with an immeasurable gulf fixed between us, and that is the end of the discussion.
Such a scenario is "perverted" medievalism because it is missing the truth of the Incarnation, and thus it is robbed of all hope; for what is Incarnation but the reality that God has stepped in (or rather down) into our sequestered area with us. Herein lies the proper response (again in word and deed) to the aforementioned ignorance: Immanuel, i.e., God with us. The concept of Immanuel is a heavy theme throughout the entire Bible. It is, of course, a strong New Testament topic, but the Old Testament Hebrews were not foreign to it. God's literally and personally meeting with His people in the Temple and tabernacle is a constant historical motif, while plenty of stories abound of the "visitor" God, whether it was discussions of faith and promise over a meal (Gen. 18), a fight in the night (Gen. 32:22-30), or a whirlwind in answer to a question (Job 38). The theme of the visitor-God crescendoed in Christ, but it remained the constant melody of the symphony of Scripture; and it is that theme that we must reassert today.
Mankind cannot take a disconnected deity. Though much lip-service is given to the thought of how happy we would be if God would "just leave us alone," the truth is (logically as well as historically) that His silence disturbs us; we could fare better with His non-existence than His indifference. Thus, if there is one thing that Christianity must do, it is to assert with absolute clarity and beauty the reality of God with us. "Immanuel" must be our constant theme. We must, in a sense, "unpervert" the current medievalism and reassert the old, i.e., though our Sin has separated us from God, He has come incarnate to us to save us from our Sin, so that now our silent planet can be filled to the brim with His song.

-Jon Vowell