A famous computer game maker has its offices in town. As I talked with one of their graphic artists, he talked about how they made their games from what was called “God’s angle” or “God’s point of view.” What that meant is that gamers saw the action on the screen from an angle of 45 degrees above the action—like God looking down on what is happening.

    Interesting. We refer to God’s angle on our world as 45 degrees above the action. But then that’s where we've always tended to place God—somewhere detached, where he can’t get soiled by the grime and crud of human living.

    The Bible, especially the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), emphasizes that God’s point of view is not 45 degrees above the action. Instead, God’s angle is at human eye level. His understanding is not omniscient knowledge but human experience. His love and care is not long distance, but up close and personal.

    While other religions place God in a high and inaccessible place, a place achieved only by great personal discipline, sacrifice and holiness, God himself entered our world in Jesus. He got grimy with our dirt—the very dirt he made. He got wounded by our sarcasm—from the very lips he fashioned. He got rejected by his people—the very people he preserved for centuries. He got killed for our sins—the very sins he did not know.

    God’s angle is not from above us, but from among us. The message of Jesus, of his life and death and resurrection, is clear: since we cannot ascend to the majesty and holiness of God, God chose to enter into the common world of mortals to save us from ourselves, our sin, and our mortality.

    While 45 degrees above the action my be God’s angle in gaming, God’s angle is eye level in life. He is God who is near, not God who is detached. He is God who loved us so much that he chose to die at our hands rather than to see us die without him. Because he is such a God, we can be with him in glory!