Title: With Us...Advent One

Date: 2009-11-29

Reference: Is. 7:14 and Matt. 1: 18-23

Most of us love the Christmas Season. The music, decorations, parties, food, gifts, and cards add to our enjoyment. Each December we all smile a little more, give a little more, love a little more. As we begin this Advent Season I would encourage each of us to take a moment each day and ponder a little more what this season really means. Emmanuel. God With Us.

Leaving behind the splendor and glory of heaven, Emmanuel chose to come and live with us, talk with us, and forever united us to himself. My prayer is this Advent and Christmas Season will be filled with the excitement that He is With Us.

700 years before the birth of Christ, the Prophet Isaiah told of a child who would be born in Israel. His name would be Emmanuel which means..”God With Us.”

Emmanuel came to teach us about God. From Jesus we learned God is with us and not against us. Jesus taught us how God created human beings in order to have fellowship with us. We wandered away from the relationship for which we were made. God tried over the years to bring us back. God made numerous attempts to call us back to our destiny. We kept losing our way. The stars, mountains, trees, and all of creation were meant to testify to God’s greatness but we bowed down before these things and worshiped them rather than the creator. God sent Moses with the law which we totally disregarded. Next God sent prophets, like Isaiah, to guide us back. They reminded us God does not desire empty ritual and ceremony but justice, mercy, and humility. Many of the prophets were mistreated and even killed for their efforts.

This Advent Season reminds us God was determined not to give up. In Jesus God came among us not as accuser, judge, or jury but as love. In Jesus God became involved with people in such a way they couldn’t miss the fact he cared.

Jesus did something that had never been done before. He enabled human beings to see God in a new way. In the Old Testament days people could never look fully upon God’s glory. Even Moses who is described as Friend of God could not look upon God’s face and live. The Bible tells us (Col. 1:15) that Jesus is the image, a flawless replica of the invisible God. As a perfect reflection of God, Jesus could say: “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” We know what god is like by knowing Jesus. The Bible also says Jesus is God’s only full expression and explanation.

Jesus didn’t come to preach about leprosy, he touched the leper in love and healed him. Jesus didn’t give a discourse on hunger; he fed those whose stomachs were empty. Jesus didn’t talk about loneliness, he went out to where lonely people were and stayed with them. Jesus just talk about the importance of forgiveness, he sought out the neediest sinners and restored them. Emmanuel. God With Us.

Emmanuel reminds us Jesus is also a contemporary. Jesus is with us today. Jesus is what God means by humanity. And Jesus is what humanity means by God. Because of Emmanuel we know how God filled people are supposed to act and live. Martin Luther used to call Christians “Little Christs.”

It is sometimes difficult for us to comprehend how the creator of the universe, the eternal Word who simply spoke and the world came into existence, could choose to join us in this world. Jesus emptied himself to become like you and me.

He chose to limit himself in space and time. He chose to bind himself to the physicality of the world he had created. This was so the creation might be healed and redeemed through him. As C. S. Lewis wrote: “The Son of God became the Son of Man, so that the Sons of Men might become Sons of God.”

This First Sunday of Advent we are overwhelmed with Gratitude for Jesus Christ and for all he means to our world. We thank God for the birth of Christ, for his incarnation in human flesh, for his ability to speak our language to experience our pain and temptations. We thank God for the life of Christ, for the example of his actions and the wisdom of his words. We are so thankful he understands our human predicament and loves us still.

The Angel of the Lord told Joseph that Mary his promised wife would have a child he would not father. This child was conceived of the Holy Spirit. The angel instructed Joseph to name the child Jesus. This birth would fulfill Isaiah’s ancient prophecy about Immanuel..God With Us. This child had a predetermined name which indicated who He was and what He was to do. The two names, Jesus and Emmanuel, describe for us what happened the night Jesus was born. The name Jesus means: “The Lord is Salvation.” The angel said name him Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. This name pointed to the significance of the original Christmas. In Jesus, God provided for all our sins..past, present and future.

Again, 700 years before the birth of Jesus Isaiah’s prophecy was a word of hope and encouragement as the people of God faced great crisis. Emmanuel assured the Saints God was with them.

These two names encompass all we need this Christmas and always. Jesus is the one who pardons our sins and Immanuel is the Divine Presence within us to help and guide us every moment of our lives. These two names are the foundation for our daily Christian Life.

On the night Christ was born, the Eternal God, motivated by love entered into the human family. Christmas is the birth of God in human flesh. Jesus was born into the world for the purpose of dying in your place and mine. Apart from this birth there is no salvation, no hope, no future. Unless God became flesh each and every one of us would have to stand before God with all our sins and shortcomings resting upon us. The shadow of a cross was over the manger the night Jesus was born. Not even the angels knew the plan of God on that first Christmas Night. The angels sang of a birth, no one thought of a death. Many pondered many things keeping them in her heart. Did she know or even have an idea about the destiny of this child she held in her arms. Did Joseph suspect anything? Did the wise men see something in their charts and scrolls? We know! God With Us. God who physically lived and walked among us to show us what God is really like. God who in Christ, Immanuel, came to save us.

Thanksgiving Night I let the dogs out. The sky was clear, bright, and cold. The stars were shining so brightly. I saw one especially bright star twinkling above. As we look upon the stars we don’t know how large they are, how far away. How much light or heat they produce. We do know God created the stars we see and trillions of others. He placed them all in their orbit. We are awed by the greatness of God. This Christmas Season we are also awed to think how God would condescend to live in our hearts.

God who created everything in the universe lives inside of us. In life we don’t have a single need God cannot satisfy. Once God is with us, there will never be a single step we have to take without Him. This is what this season is all about, God coming to live with us and within each believer.

This season will get very busy and hectic in and out of the church. There is nothing at all wrong with celebrating and enjoying this wonderful season with gifts, food, parties and festivities so long as they don’t crowd out what belongs in first place. Christmas is about God breaking into humanity and becoming our hope.

A young child had the following conversation with his father. “God is everywhere isn’t He?” “Yes” said his father, “everywhere.” “We can’t see God can we?” “No, we cannot see God.” “If God is everywhere and we cannot see Him, how come we aren’t bumping into Him all the time?” Immanuel reminds us we are constantly bumping into God for He is With Us. We bump into God in the beauty of the world around us. We bump into God as we enjoy the many gifts He has provided for us. As we view our neighbor in need, as we minister to the lost, the lonely and broken. God reaches out to us in so many ways but in our self centeredness we don’t respond to God’s touch.

The architect finds expression in granite. The artist finds expression in paint. The author seeks expression in words. God chose to express himself in a human being. Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. A Sunday School Teacher was seeking a fresh analogy for the incarnation of Jesus. He saw his gloves on his desk. They were limp and lifeless until he slipped one of them on and his hand filled the glove out. He thought this is how God came to earth to slip into the glove of a human life.

God was at work in Jesus as a hand in a glove.

Mother Teresa used to say: “The coming of Jesus at Bethlehem brought joy to the world and to every human heart. May His coming this Christmas bring to each one of us that peace and joy He still desires to give.” Because He came our world will never be the same. Our lives will never be the same, because God is With Us.

The wonder of Christmas is God who dwelt among us can now dwell within us. Someone has said: “though Christ a thousand times be born in Bethlehem, If he is not born in you, your soul is still forlorn.” Christmas is the beginning and not an end