Communicating God

Several years ago I visited a missionary friend in Sao Paulo, Brazil. On one occasion I spoke to a group, but I couldn’t speak Portugese so Dennie translated for me. I thought I would attempt a little humor. I suggested that because of the difference in language they could easily talk about me behind my back while standing right in front of me. The joke flopped. Not even a smile. They sat, still waiting for the punch line. “Tough crowd,” I thought.

I later learned the problem. In Portugese there is no equivalent expression for doing something “behind my back.” The play on words made no sense to them. I learned that day the challenge of communicating and the value of shared experience, culture and language.

The ability to communicate is important to God, so important that he sent Jesus to share our experience and learn our language. He was “in very nature God,” but “made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:6-7). Fittingly, he is called the “Word,” that fundamental element of communication. The Word, who was in the beginning, “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:1-2,14).

Jesus understands us. “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity ....” He had to be “made like his brothers in every way” so that he could be perfectly suited to bridge the gap between us and God. What we experience, he experienced. He is not “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin” (Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15).

Do you feel lonely? Jesus speaks the language of loneliness. Have you been abandoned? Jesus knows betrayal. Do you battle the powerful enticement to evil or giving up? No one was tempted more directly than Jesus. Are you weary of daily pain and illness? Jesus understands suffering.

He not only understands, he does something about it for those who believe in him. He “is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34). There is no one who can represent our case better and no one God more readily hears and responds to.

Not only does Jesus interpret our hearts to God, but he also reveals God’s heart to us. God let people know what he was like in many different ways before Jesus came, but there was always that gap that blocked real understanding. As the Apostle John said, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:18). The fog of communication has evaporated. We are given “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).

We had heard about God’s compassion; now we see it. We thought he was merciful; now we experience it. Holiness seemed a very good religious word; now we see it walking on the hillside, revealing it in the dust and grime of daily life. We struggled to grasp God’s love when it seemed so distant; now all doubt is removed when we see the cross, God’s own selfless suffering for us.

Communication is tricky. It is so much more than words. We long to be understood and God responds, opening the channels that flow in both directions. The obstacles are removed and the point is not missed. He speaks our language.