I misremembered the title of the children’s story that I cited in the middle of this reflection: I think it still works.

In the Advent to Christmas stories we find a lot of fear, and a balancing dose of faith. From Mary running to the hills to Joseph’s misgivings, the fear of the anunciation of the birth of Christ is palpable. And the angels say, Do not be afraid.

The message of the incarnation is that we have a God who knows what it is to be afraid, to have faith, to feel everything in between. Not just theoretically, or philosophically: I made everything, so of course I know about everything. But a God who, in the person of Jesus, had a body, and fear, and faith, and grief, delight, and disgust; who tasted sour and sweet.

And so we have that name, Emmanuel. God is with us. God who gets us. And that is a little scary, too; it means there is nowhere to hide from what we feel.

And sometimes, if we’re honest (and we might as well be, since God knows) we wonder if what we really want is an Emmanuel, or a God beyond it all, to fix it all.

When Job’s friends first came to visit him after his devastating losses, they sat for days in silence. They waited for literal days while he felt his pain and grief and anger until he was ready to speak. They were much better, in fact, when they were simply with him than when they began to try to rationalize his pain.

Someone recently read me a book, The Rabbit Listened, by Cori Doerrfeld. What I remember from the story is that a child built something, which, being ephemeral as mortal creations are, fell down. That the child was devastated. And that various creatures came to give their advice on what to do next.

The hyenas said to laugh. The elephant to remember all of the details so as to be able to replicate them. Some fierce animal suggested wrecking someone else’s creation, to share the misery. But the child did not want their advice, so they all left. But then, in the book, there is a rabbit. The rabbit did not offer advice. The rabbit waited. As the title says, the rabbit listened; what I remembered was that the rabbit stayed.

This is Emmanuel, the God who stays with us as we weep and wail, throw things and shout, collapse and hide under the blankets, find our courage to try again. The God who listens. The God who stays.

The God who is patient. God who is kind. God who bears all things, believes all things. God who does not delight in the things that hurt but in the things that heal. God who endures. God who is love.

May such a God stay with us. May such a God be our Emmanuel.