You Shall Call Him Immanuel
Meditating on God’s Presence
Advent Midweek 3
16 December 2015
The day after the San Bernadino shootings, the New York Daily News had this bold headline and cover story, “God isn’t fixing this.” The first line of that cover story began, “Prayer isn’t working.” The article was written in response to the many politicians who said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.” I don’t think the article was really against God, but against politicians invoking the name of God.
There are two mistakes, not surprisingly that the New York Daily News made with its headline. First, God was working that day in San Bernadino – who do you think was responsible for the police and emergency responders? Who ran to confront that terrorist couple and stop their evil? Who ran to heal and help those who were wounded? God Himself established the governing authorities to bear the sword against evil – God is with us when police officers stand in harms way. God is with us in His hands of mercy when EMTs and doctors and nurses work to save and restore what is broken by violence, accidents, and disease. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, writes the Apostle James.
For those created gifts, for all the ways in which God is with us to help us and heal us and deliver us from evil, we ought to give thanks. But that help from God is not enough. You and I need more, and although I don’t think the Daily News had this in mind, their headline indicates the need. There was great evil done in San Bernadino that day and the police, the government, gun laws, and the best surgeons and doctors couldn’t do anything about it, but God did.
The Lord promise through the prophet Isaiah and He deliver on the promise through the Virgin Mary – the promise to come Himself to be with us. A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means God with us.) That is the ultimate and greatest way in which God is with us and God is working – when the only begotten Son of God comes in the flesh of Jesus, the son of Mary.
It’s not that hard to see God’s sword of justice behind the police officer or God’s healing hand behind a gifted surgeon or physician. It’s not even that hard to see God behind your parents who raised you in the faith or your children who stop in every day to look after you. But God as a fetus – we discard over a million of those every year in the United States. God as an infant – what good will that do us? We stumble over Immanuel. For a brief time in Jesus’ life on earth it appeared He might amount to something – a Healer of the sick, a Bread Machine for the Hungry, even a Raiser of the dead, but then, as you know, that all disappeared. Jesus, this God who wore a diaper, is stripped of everything, convicted of no crime, yet sentenced to death. If you have trouble with God as a baby, what about God as a convict? What about God on a cross?
But there, in those two places, there God is most with you and most for you. There’s a problem so deep within you that no surgeon can remove it and no sword can stop it. It’s the sin of your heart. You’ve thought things, said things, done things, that are evil beyond measure against your wife, husband, children, parents, church – and against God. Your heart is sinful. Your mind is corrupted. Your hands sometimes act with a will of their own. Your mouth speaks words that destroy and kill. You need more than any man or woman can deliver, you need God to deliver you.
To be with you God became flesh, and that is mind-boggling. There in the womb of the Virgin Mary, God was that two cell zygote. Then God’s cells started multiplying in the same way that you did in your mother’s womb, little fingers, little toes. Within two weeks of His conception Jesus’ heart was developing and three weeks later that heart was beating. And along with that heart came everything else. That’s God with you – totally with you, true man. There was only one difference between you and Jesus in the womb. You were a sinner from the moment of conception. Jesus had no sin of His own.
But He came in that way without sin so that He could bear your sin. In the womb He was without sin, but at the cross He was sin. That’s why He came to be with us. We’ve heard it throughout Advent – from the Angel to Joseph – You will call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. From the mouth of John the Baptist – Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We’ll hear it next week from the Angels, “Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”
That’s God’s way of working, of loving, of delivering you from evil. He comes Himself – to be with you in human flesh and then in that same flesh to bear your sin, receive your judgment, suffer your hell, and die your death. That’s how God fixes evil in the world. He does it Himself when He comes to be with you in the flesh of His Son and die for you.
There is no fix apart from God in the flesh and God on the cross. Either Jesus takes away your sin or you still have them. God’s Savior or no Savior. His flesh dies or your flesh dies. His hell or yours.
The New York Daily News did not see any sign that God was at work. King Ahaz, in his false piety, said he didn’t need a sign. God gave him one anyway through the prophet Isaiah. A virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Immanuel. You want a sign that God is at work – look in the womb of the Virgin Mary, look in the manger at Bethlehem, look at the cross, look at your baptism, listen to God’s Word, receive His Supper – for there God is with you, to forgive you, to save you, to deliver you from evil, to deliver you from yourself. In the name of Jesus. Amen.