What’s the Look on His Face?
Christmas season is in full swing here in Oslo. As our bodies adapt to the cold and our eyes to dimmer days, we’re learning a lot about Christmas in our new host country. Instead of Jolly Old Saint Nicolas, the Julenisse is the bearer of gifts on Christmas Eve. The Nisse is a short-statured and (usually) bearded creature from Norwegian folklore, similar to an elf, gnome, or pixie. In recent history, the Scandinavian Nisse has been blended somewhat with the Santa Claus of my youth to create the hybrid Julenisse.
Historically, keeping a good rapport with your neighborly Nisse was said to be key to ensuring good health and prosperity on the farm. But should you forget to set out a bowl of porridge and a slab of butter in appreciation, then your Nisse might turn against you and work toward the ruin of your family and farm.[1] This is because the Nisse is inherently temperamental. Thankfully the God you and I serve is not.
I want to invite you to use your imagination. As your Heavenly Father looks upon you right now, what look does he wear on his face? Far too often the answer in my own heart is that I perceive a look of disappointment. If not disappointment, then the face I imagine is an indifferent or impatient one with raise eyebrows, pursed lips, and thoughts of “when are you going to do something to impress me, Andrew?” In those all-too-frequent moments, I struggle to believe the gospel and the riches of being in union with Christ and adopted into God’s family as his beloved son.
Thankfully, our heavenly Father is not a temperamental Nisse. Nor is he the naughty or nice list-checker who’s clutching coal for those who disappoint him. If he were, our joyful service in the family of God would be replaced by slavish duty. “What if I mess up? What if I don’t do enough? What if I’m not passionate enough?” Such thoughts would plague us and all the labors of our hands and hearts would be transactions to make sure God gives us good things and not bad things. Always more porridge and butter, but never the surety of this smile.
The words the Father spoke over Jesus’ baptism are true for those who are connected to Jesus by faith. “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” This means the Father is pleased with you like he is pleased with his own Son, Jesus. That’s the freeing beauty of being united to Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t just die to atone for our sins. God also credited Christ’s righteousness to us. It’s passive righteousness as Luther liked to call it because we don’t and can’t work for it. It comes to us by nature of our Christ-connection and it’s not going anywhere.[2]
That look on the Father’s face over you and me — needy servants dependent on Jesus — is a smile. Here’s my prayer for you this Christmas. However, you labor to serve the international church, I pray you do so with the freedom and joy that comes from living under the warmth of God’s smile in Christ.
Andrew Lupton
Church Starting Coordinator
Well said Andrew. Thanks for that.