God-Who-Is-With-Us

God-who-is-with-us

Matthew 1:18-25[1]

At this time of year, it seems that many of us are concerned with surprises. We want once again to surprise those we love with gifts that convey our love, and we want to be surprised again with gifts from them that convey their love. I must confess that I’m not very good at surprising people. Rather than making the mistake of buying someone a gift that I may like but they don’t, I rely on “wish lists” from my children and grandchildren. It would be good if I took notes throughout the year like my son Michael has started doing. Unfortunately, I don’t think of that until it’s too late. I think perhaps I’m not alone in that dilemma!

As we come to the celebration of Christmas, we are reminded that the story of Jesus’ birth is one that is full of surprises. The Savior of humankind comes to us not as a Roman aristocrat, but as a Jewish peasant!  He is born not in the finest villa but in a cave cut out for livestock! He is worshiped not by the “high and mighty” among his people, but by the down and out, simple shepherds. Those nobles who do pay homage to him are foreigners; they are astrologer-priests from Babylon whom we call “wise men” but who would have been considered magicians, enchanters, diviners, and sorcerers by the Jewish people. At least that’s what they’re called in the book of Daniel.

 I think the biggest surprise about the story of Jesus is what it tells us about God. When it comes to imagining a divine being, many of us automatically think of one who is remote and detached. We think of a powerful authority figure who is so busy running the universe that there’s no time to be concerned about “little people” like you and me. At least that has been the image of God that most people have lived with throughout history. God is to be feared because God can “zap” us at a whim. God is to be kept at a distance because if we get too close we might offend God and wind up getting punished for it. Our primary response is to hide from this God for fear that if God really knows us, our ultimate fate will be grim.

But the story of Jesus’ birth is one that presents us with a completely opposite view of God. As our lesson from Matthew’s Gospel demonstrates, the birth of Jesus shows us a God who is “with us” and “for us.” This is a radically different understanding of God, even for people who were raised on the teachings of the Hebrew Bible, as were Mary and Joseph. It’s so radically different that it takes an angelic messenger to make sure that Mary understands what’s going on. And God himself has to come to Joseph in a dream in order to get it through his pre-conceived notions!

The story of Jesus’ birth reveals to us that God is “with us.” That’s literally the meaning of the name “Emmanuel.” It’s from two Hebrew words, immanu, which means “with us,” and el, which is a shortened form of the word for God. This message is not really new. Through the prophets God had been trying to get across that his very identity always has been “God-who-is-with-us.”^[2] And yet, we humans have always been slow to believe it. Just emphasizing again that fundamental truth would have been a dramatic statement. But the fact that God came in the person of Jesus, the helpless infant lying in a feed trough, in order to get through to us that he is always the “God-who-is-with-us” was mystifying to those who witnessed it. I would venture to say that it still is.

If we think of God as one who is demanding and punishing, then “God with us” might not be good news. But there’s more to the story of Jesus’ birth. The very fact that Matthew is instructed to name him “Jesus” suggests not only that God is “with us,” but also that God is “for us.”^[3] The name “Jesus” in Hebrew was Yehoshua. It was a combination of a shortened form of the name of God, Yahweh, and the Hebrew word for salvation, yeshua. It literally means, “God saves.” Or, in other words, God is “for us.” The birth of Jesus not only shows us the “God-who-is-with-us,” but also that God is “for us.”

In Jesus, God came to once and for all get it through to us that everything he had ever done was intended to make clear that God is always “with us” and “for us.” This is the heart of the good news that we celebrate in the birth of Jesus. It was not something new with Jesus, because God has always been “God-who-is-with-us” and “God-who-is-for-us.” As one of my favorite theologians says it, everything God has ever done has been a kind and loving humbling of himself to give us his saving mercy.^[4] But the way in which God demonstrates his love in Jesus is so dramatic that it changes everything. Once and for all, God makes it clear that he is “God-who-is-with-us” and “for us.”

For some reason, I think every time we hear that great good news it comes to us again and again as a surprise. Perhaps we think of ourselves as unworthy. Or perhaps we just cannot wrap our heads around a God who humbles himself. But that’s exactly what we celebrate at Christmas. God comes to be “with us” and “for us.” And he does so by coming as one of the least, one of the last, one of those cast out and brushed aside. God does not come to be “with us” and “for us” by a dramatic demonstration of divine power, accompanied by tens of thousands of his angel armies. He comes to us by taking the form of a helpless infant lying in a feed trough. He comes to us as God in flesh, Emmanuel, “God-who-is-with-us.”

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[1] ©2019 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/22/2019 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.2:735: “God does not will to be without us, but, no matter who and what we may be, to be with us, that He Himself is always ‘God with us,’ Emmanuel.”

[3] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1:174, 4.1:7, 12.

[4] Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God, 184.