This wafting voice on the radio reflects a theological profundity that goes to the heart of our annual celebration of Christmas.

Christmas reminds us of the Biblical crux of our belief that God did, indeed, become one of us.

And Advent, these days before Christmas, is a time to focus our attention as to just what this really means for us today.

Like the singer of the song, like the Gospel writers, like Paul, and like so many others over the span of time, let us articulate an incarnational theology true for our days.

The singer asks, "If God had a face, what would it look like..."

The questions abound:

How would we know when we see God?

What would God sound like?

Well, thanks to a great many hints in our scriptures, we know a lot about what God looks like and what God sounds like.

When lifted up and put together you may be surprised at what we can expect when we seek the face of God.

And, we will be exploring some of these ideas each Sunday as we prepare for Christmas this year.

One of the new television shows this season deals with this subject each week. Each week, some ten million people watch a teenage girl – Joan of Arcadia – encounter the face of God.

Exactly why this particular girl was picked, we don’t know, but the implied message is that God encounters all of us on a regular basis – but, we have conditioned ourselves to largely ignore the encounters.

So, What if God were one of us?

Surprise! Surprise!

After a few weeks of these encounters, Joan has a turn-around. Because her encounters with God are always through different faces, she has come to expect to see God whenever she sees a stranger.

Hello?! Surprise, surprise!

How Biblical is that?

For sure, to the vast majority of viewers, Joan of Arcadia is just another story – not too unlike Law and Order or CSI or Ed.

But, to those of us who study scripture, to those of us who profess faith in the God Jesus called Daddy, to those of us who find meaning and inspiration and strength in our communal gatherings on Sundays, this show is a weekly demonstration of what we know to be true.

We know the stories to be true, because they happen to us.

This is the time of year when we pay attention to such things, when we are called to hone our skills of discernment to discover anew where the Christ is being birthed today.

During these days ahead,
let us tell the stories from our faith-history -
stories we will hear no where else
stories we need to hear, again and again
stories our children need to hear
and stories our children’s children need to hear
stories that speak to what we may expect to experience –
if we only knew where and how to look.

Surprise! Surprise!

This is the gist of our whole Christmas message.

See you in church, Clyde Griffith

This column is reprinted from The People's Steeple, December, 2003