Immanuel: God With Us


עִמָּנוּאֵל

Immanuel

God With Us

That's God's name. Think about this for a moment. Being with you isn't something God does. Being with you is who God is.

One night Joseph had a dream, but this was no ordinary dream. A young man grappling with how to call off his marriage to Mary without publicly disgracing her was visited by an angel in his dream. An angel with a message.

"Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).” Matthew 1:20-23

I love the many names of God. They speak of provision, healing, power, and authority.
I love the way God has revealed himself to humanity over time. A cloud, wind, fire, thunder, and more.
But the babe lying in the manger the first Christmas morn was God incarnate. Heaven on earth. Love came down. This was not a cloud or a story. Jesus was "God With Us."

When I see a cross it reminds me that God wants to spend eternity with me. But when I see a manger I'm reminded God wants to be with me on earth. The cross reminds me God did what was necessary to get me into his presence forever. The manger reminds me God did what was necessary to get into my presence on earth.

Perhaps you've seen the old movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy. It's a comical portrayal of a man trying to get home to his family for Thanksgiving. I lived a similar experience once. I was in Buffalo and was told there were no more flights to NYC. My only options were Charlotte, DC, or Philadelphia. So I boarded a plane to Philly. From the airport I took a cab to the Septa station and bought a ticket to NJ. In Jersey I took a NJ Transit train to Penn Station. From there I walked over and hopped on the #1 line of the subway and rode to 242nd St in the Bronx where my son picked me up and drove me home. It was exhausting, and I collapsed in my bed at 3:00 am. But I was home. Home is where I wanted to be so I did what was necessary to get there. 

God's journey was far more extreme than mine. He became flesh. He wanted to be with us. He came in an extraordinary way.

He is Immanuel.

Following the Son,

James A Williams

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get The Rebound

Image
If you've ever played or watched basketball you know that rebounding is a huge part of the game. If you're unfamiliar with the sport rebounding is quite simply getting the ball when a shot is missed. You can't score without the ball which makes the play of great importance. It's not unusual for a team with a higher shooting percentage to lose a basketball game because they were out rebounded. On the court what you do when you miss can be even more important than making shots. It's true in life as well. Everyone misses shots, but that doesn't mean you've lost the game. Get the rebound. "For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again." Proverbs 24:16. People won't always give you the chance to rise again. For some your shortcoming is how they'll label you forever. Get the rebound anyway.  It was the historian Froude who wrote, "The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular a...
Read more

What’s In Your Cart?

Image
On this day in 1939, Sylvan Goldman who owned the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain got an idea. He was trying to think of a way for his customers to transport more groceries around his stores. He attached 4 wheels to the legs of a wooden folding chair, and then attached a basket to the seat. The shopping cart was born.  Before this shopping trips to the Humpty Dumpty or the Piggly Wiggly would be limited to what you could carry in your arms. I wonder if Sylvan’s original patent stated that one of the wheels was to either not spin or rapidly shake back and forth? It’s possible that this is some modern improvement on his original design. However it happened the carts keep getting bigger. When I bring my groceries to the check out counter I sometimes use the self check out. I don’t like the self checkout because the computer keeps telling me I put things in the bagging area when I didn’t. When I get a real person they will often ask this profound question. “Did you find ev...
Read more

Mercy

Image
We visited our nephew and his family last weekend. They have three boys, and witnessing their interactions brought back memories of both fun and difficult days of raising our boys. Sometimes when my boys were young I felt like all I did was discipline them. It seemed at times like we couldn't make it through a meal, homework, or even play time, without a fight breaking out, some inappropriate comment, backtalk, or a hundred other random things they could find to do to push their Mother and I over the line. I remember calmly saying things like, "I need for you to understand that I can feel anger welling up within me."  Sometimes this would result in corrected behavior, other times they would look at me as though I were speaking Chinese (I know this isn't actually a language, please don't write me a letter). I realize spanking children is controversial, so I tried not to spank my sons over 3 or 4 times a day (That's called hyperbole). On one occ...
Read more