BEING HUMAN

Advent Reflections from Ukraine “Awaiting the Prince of Peace” – Day 16 (December 16, 2024), the 1027th day of the ongoing full-scale war

As Ukraine’s skies fill with missiles on this 1027th day of war, Russian soldiers, like Hitler’s forces before them, claim divine sanction for their violence. They say they defend “their god and traditional Christian values” — a strangely vulnerable deity requiring protection through genocide and unbelievable destruction… Yet where is the true Emmanuel when Russian cruise missiles, kamikaze drones, artillery shells, and bullets pierce our lives and skies? How do we recognize authentic divine presence when false claims of “God with us” justify atrocity?

“The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’” (Matthew 1:23)

This advent season reveals a stunning paradox: the God who fills infinite space chose finite limitation in Bethlehem’s manger. This wasn’t divine retreat but radical advance — God compressing cosmic presence into human vulnerability. The manger foreshadowed the Cross, both revealing that Emmanuel manifests most powerfully where human and religious systems expect Him least.

Now, as Russian aggression compresses our world into survival spaces, we discover Emmanuel expanding from that ancient manger into our war-torn reality. Like my brother Andriy, killed by Russians in July, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian defenders and civilians have departed into eternity, leaving families to navigate between divine presence and human absence. Yet Emmanuel bridges this gap, present equally in front-line trenches where soldiers pray, in grieving homes where families gather around empty chairs, and in that unseen realm where fallen defenders dwell in unfiltered light…

This presence transcends both religious pretense and human perception. Many Russian Orthodox Church priests and evangelical pastors and bishops continue to bless missiles and war while claiming to protect “traditional Christian values” against the demonic Collective West by murdering the Ukrainians… their god is aligned only with the Russian empire, Russian language, Russian culture, Russian “church…” not Emmanuel…

But true Emmanuel appears in most unexpected places — hospitals where doctors operate by flashlight, ruined apartments where families huddle “behind two walls,” hastily dug graves where bodies rest… God remains present not despite these locations but especially within them…

Emmanuel creates an unbreakable connection between living and dead… between me and fallen Andriy… between temporal and eternal… forming the Community of Hope in Christ that transcends physical separation and even death itself… This isn’t about occasional divine appearances but constant presence even in apparent absence… The same God who lay in Bethlehem’s manger fills Ukraine’s darkest spaces, uniting those still fighting with those, like Andriy, who have crossed into Glory’s immediate presence…

The same God who holds our fallen defenders in eternity walks alongside our grieving families here, proving that even death cannot separate us from this Emmanuel… And as we approach another Christmas in war, we remember: Emmanuel’s deepest mystery isn’t about God coming near but about recognizing the presence that never left….

This presence carries triple promise: incarnation past (God with us in Jesus), presence now (through Spirit in war’s darkness), and future hope (Christ’s return as ultimate Emmanuel)… Until then… His Church, the Community of Hope, becomes hands and feet of Emmanuel, manifest through defenders protecting our people and country, volunteers evacuating civilians, chaplains comforting the scared and wounded, believers sheltering the displaced — each making tangible the presence of God-with-us… True Emmanuel manifests most clearly not in imperialistic religious claims of divine support but in our faithful presence amid suffering… May we discover… may our eyes open to the presence that never departed…

Prince of Peace, God with us in darkness and light, in joy and grief, make Your presence known in our places of apparent absence. Unite us with those who have crossed into Your more immediate presence. Transform our places of loss into sites of encounter. Help us recognize Your face in unlikely people, Your voice in unexpected moments, Your presence in improbable places. We pray in the precious name of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, Who has been here all along… Amen