What if God, who is so powerful He created suns –
entire galaxies of suns – with just His word – what if He, who is so wise He thought up mitochondria and elephants, DNA and gravity, black holes and mountain blossoms, - what if the God who deserves absolute worship and complete obedience, - what if He made people – each one unique, intentionally unique - and said, “Come and walk with me. Create with me. Laugh with me.”?
And what if He made them, not just people who had to love and obey Him, but people who were like Him in some crucial ways.
What if this unfathomably awesome God made people,
and gave them the freedom to live independently of His guidance and wisdom? What if He gave them bodies to live in, and made them to be eternal souls? What if He loved these people so much He wanted them to be able to freely choose to love Him – or to reject Him? What if He wanted people to fellowship with Him, to create with Him, to walk with Him, and what if He wanted them to love Him back – not out of fear, or threat, or rote programming, but out of reciprocal love. Out of free choice, out of the decision that loving God was delightful, and pleasant, and rewarding, and peaceful, and joyous, and empowering, and freeing…
And then, what if one day some of those people –
maybe even most of those people – decided that, nope – they wanted to reject God’s offer of love? What if they were tricked into believing that God’s guidelines for an optimum life were merely restrictive rules and regs, and that life would be better without Him and His ways? What if they then decided that God’s ways were too restrictive, and they wanted to walk away from Him and His offer of a significant, eternal, joyous life? What if they then said, “Come on. Who needs that? Here’s an easier way.”
What if that decision worked its way out over years and generations and centuries, and turned the world into a place of selfishness, violence, misunderstanding, doubt and fear? What if those people believed the lie that God’s ways, His very offers of forgiveness and restoration were narrow and hateful? What if they came to blame God Himself for the dirty, broken mess that we see around us today?
What if He said, through all of that rejection and sadness, “Come back! I love you still!”?
What if that God, through tears of loss and pain, looked on with pity and mercy, and offered still another chance to make it all right again? What if He, in His power, wisdom, and creativity, found a way to take all the rejection and brokenness, and pay a huge price – “on Him” – to open a way for those people to return to open, loving, welcoming relationship with Him again?
What if that way was through a virgin bearing a son in a stable in a small town with no warm lights to chase away the fear, no heat to ease a sore back, no couch to flop down on, no loving family to sympathize, and no bed on which to fall into healing sleep?
What if that baby was God Himself in disguise – welcomed only by the lowest of the low, acknowledged by angels proclaiming over lonely fields and empty streets, “Come and see! Here is the way! Come and worship! Come and be free again!” What if His name is Jesus?
What if that baby grew up,
perfect in body, soul, thought and action? What if He chose to accept on Himself the burden of the cost of all the years of rejection and violence, greed and pain?
What if He, with arms open wide, offered, “Come and be made whole and clean. I’ve paid the price.”?
Well, then – I need only to respond, to accept His offer, and to receive His love, peace, plan, presence. And I can then share this good news with others. That’s what if.