God Is With Us
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
December 17, 2006--Advent III
Matthew 1:18-25
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Part of the problem with the academic year is that we never get to spend Christmas together. You all head off around the country to be with friends and family once the semester is over. And so, as is our custom, we like to cheat a little bit: on the final Sunday of the semester, this Third Sunday in Advent, we like to bring Christmas forward a little. And so it is that I would like to share with you my Christmas message.
I know that we are right now toward the end of final exams, but it's never too late to learn something. And so tonight, I am going to teach you two Hebrew words. The first one is immanu. Everyone say, "immanu." Good. That is the Hebrew word for "with us". Where is Dan? Dan is immanu. Dan is with us. The second word I would like to teach you is El. Everyone say, "El". That is one of the Hebrew words for "God".
Together, they make a powerful statement: Immanu-El, God is with us.
I find that at Christmas-time, we often get distracted by so much. If it's not the gift-giving, it's the family reunions. If it's not that, it's the stress of the holiday. Or the food. Or whatever. The same is true for the church. Sometimes we get distracted by our own stories. For many, we have come to believe that Christmas is about the coming of a tiny child in a manger, born of a virgin. Most of the Christmas carols seem to be about that.
But Christmas is about so much more. It is not really about the miracle of the Virgin Birth--it is about the miracle of the awesome mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God in our midst. We understand this to mean that God's own revelation, God's own self, takes on our flesh, lives our lives, knows our sorrows and our joys, and ultimately dies our death. The awesome mystery of Christmas is that when we ask "Where is El, Where is God?" The answer is immanu.
There is only one story in the Gospels of Jesus between the ages of infant and thirty. A story of Jesus in the temple when he was twelve. So much is left out. So much that might make our understanding so much clearer. Undoubtedly he knew sickness and pain. I am sure he skinned his knee a few times as a boy. I am sure like the rest of us he got teased as a child. I am sure he experienced the death of a loved one, the anxieties of the world, the pressures of living and the exhaustion of work. In my understanding of what it means to confess Jesus as truly human and truly divine, there is no realm of human experience that was foreign to Jesus.
Think about what that means! It means that the immortal God has demonstrated an awesome and mysterious solidarilty with finite, mortal humanity. God does not look down on us from a lofty throne, detached and removed from our struggles--God is with us in the struggles. God knows our struggles and our triumphs. What a hopeful thought! In whatever times we might find ourselves, in good times and bad, in the broad plain or the wilderness, in the face of injustice or in the face of redemption, God is immanu. God is with us. And in surprising and unexpected places: in Bethlehem, too, not just Jerusalem. To poor parents, not just to the wealthy. Appearing to shepherds and astrologers, not just to priests, prophets, and kings.
The power of the Christmas message is that immanu-El--God is with us, wherever we are, whoever we are, however we are. It is a message of hope, of love, of joy, and of peace this Advent and Christmas, and throughout the year as we live our lives. For we know truly that there is not part of our lives that God does not know, really know, and that God is not apart from us, but immanu. God is with us.
Merry Christmas.
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Copyright © 2006. Mark A. Schaefer.
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