Text or turn up? | City Bible Forum
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Text or turn up?

Are iPhones hijacking our lives?
Tue 1 Dec 2015
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Written by Craig Broman
Director of City Bible Forum in Adelaide

Text or turn up?

Could this be the new slogan for the recent spate of ads underlining the dangers of mobile use while driving? It would seem our love affair with technology is harming us. Are iPhones hijacking our lives? An article by Daniel Sarewitz explains why our mobiles are turning us into lovers of self. He defines a growing problem we have with our technology:

“It’s the moment you and your date finish ordering dinner, you pull out your smartphones and start texting so you don't have to face the possibility of silence. Or, you find out what your kid is up to, not by talking to her but by monitoring her Facebook page. At work you simply cannot go more than 10 minutes without checking email, no matter how much else you have to do and finally, you're always taking pictures of yourself with your friends so you can check on how good you look” [1]

Despite huge advances in communication technology, we still struggle to really communicate human to human. That’s where Christmas can potentially help us. When God wanted to communicate to us, he didn't text, or post more pictures on Facebook, he turned up. Turning up in person is a powerful thing, to actually be there when it counts. I vividly remember my mother’s funeral, greeting people at the end and being bowled over with who actually turned up. Their presence, the effort it took them to be there, spoke volumes to me, even without a word exchanged.

If you’re thinking,

“Do you really expect me to believe that God has come down to us?”

Then humour me for a moment, suspend your disbelief & contemplate the possibility. We think the most obscure stories are the most difficult to understand, but in reality, the great danger is with those stories we are most familiar. This is the issue with Christmas, we think we know it. What could the possibility of God turning up indicate?

At least three things:

1. Humility: God arranges the most humiliating and scandalous circumstances possible for his entrance to our world. The Almighty appears on earth as a helpless baby, unable to do more than wriggle and make noises. God strips himself of majesty, power, and becomes flesh like our flesh. And despite being confined to human skin, he goes on to turn our world upside down like no one before or after him. The more you contemplate that, the more staggering it gets.

If God turns up it indicates his:

2. Approachability: The Bible is littered with examples of people brushing up against God, which left them crippled, glowing, in absolute fear or stone-dead. Now, God is around the corner for anyone to see; it’s like the artist who becomes part of his own canvas, the director who steps onto the stage of his own play. God is not some distant landlord up on the hill, he moves into our village for a time and dwells cheek by jowl among the residents. As John’s biography of Jesus says,

“The Word [2] became flesh and made his home among us. We have seen his glory; the glory of the One and only God, full of grace and truth.”
John chapter 1 verse 14

Finally, if God turned up it indicates:

3. Identification: God so identifies himself with humanity he subjects himself to becoming one of us. The Word becoming flesh means more than God encasing himself in a physical body. It means he took it upon himself to enter into everything that contributes to a fully human experience. That is why for over 2,000 years, Christians have asked Jesus to help them in their struggles - precisely because he knows first-hand what we go through. As the first Christians aptly said,

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin.”
Hebrews chapter 4 verse 15

If you can believe he turned up, then other things that Jesus did become less difficult to entertain.
So what is the point of Christmas? God turned up - IN PERSON.

Why?

To kick-start a plan addressing a relationship with us that had stalled. The climax of which takes him to an undeserved death on a cross, followed by an astounding resurrection. Christmas is about God swooping down to live in our world, completing a rescue, which enables him to take us back to live in his world. At the least, it demonstrates how seriously he takes communicating; he would rather turn up than text!

It seems a small thing to take some time out to discover what he said when he was here - the contents of which can be found in the biographies of Jesus by Matthew or Luke. At Christmas we will probably get more texts, email and Facebook updates than usual but the unnerving thought is,

"What if God did turn up?"

If he did, it could change everything.

Gaudi's carvings of the manger scene on the entry to the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

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[1] Sarewitz, D (12/11/2013) From iPhone to mePhone: why mobiles are turning us into narcissists, Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax Media, Sydney
[2] The “Word” is a catch-all term for God communicating with people

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