Is God with us?

"They will call him Immanuel, which means, God with us."

The doctrine of the Incarnation is central to the Christian faith. It states that God has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but instead emptied himself and took the form of a servant - being born in our likeness and suffering for us on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11). Through his life, death, and resurrection, he has opened the way to our reconciliation to God's own self and our restoration in God's own image.

The season of Advent is the time when we remember and re-tell the story of the Incarnation. It's a story that can border on sentimentality if we're not careful, so I sometimes think it's helpful to think of both Philippians 2 and John 1 when we're reading from the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. The One who was born to Mary is none other than the eternal Word of God, who was there at the very beginning and through whom all things were made.

But wait - there's more.

Intimately connected with the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus promised us that he wouldn't leave us alone. Indeed, he poured out the Holy Spirit onto the Church so that we could be taught, counseled, encouraged, and transformed.

An emphasis on the persona and work of the Holy Spirit is one aspect of Wesleyan theology. As Wesleyans, we understand the Spirit to be essential to the affirmation that - yes! - God is still with us.

John Wesley writes in his Letter to a Roman Catholic, "I believe the infinite and eternal Spirit of God, equal with the Father and the Son, to be not only perfectly holy in himself, but the immediate cause of all holiness in us: enlightening our understandings, rectifying our wills and affections, renewing our natures, uniting our persons to Christ, assuring us of the adoption of sons, leading us in our actions, purifying and sanctifying our souls and bodies to a full and eternal enjoyment of God."

That's a strong statement of the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. And Wesley echoes it elsewhere, particularly in relation to the work of the Spirit in salvation. For instance, look at this comment by Wesley in his sermon, "The Great Privilege of Those that are Born of God," where he speaks about what he calls, "the life of God in the soul of a believer."

Wesley writes, "It ... implies the continual inspiration of God's Holy Spirit: God's breathing into the soul, and the soul's breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, and re-action of the soul upon God; an unceasing presence of God, the loving, pardoning God, manifested to the heart, and perceived by faith; and an unceasing return of love, praise, and prayer, offering up all the thoughts of our hearts, all the words of our tongues, all the works of our hands, all our body, soul, and spirit, to be an holy sacrifice, acceptable unto God in Christ Jesus."

Our election is, it turns out, conditional. It is conditional upon the action of the Holy Spirit upon us, and upon our willingness to be swept up in that wonderful work of grace upon our souls. Wesley's statement captures that aspect of salvation beautifully. What he's describing, in essence, is what it means to be perfected by grace.

Considering the presence of the Holy Spirit with us here & now, in my mind, adds something significant to how I think about Advent.