The “With Us” God
Lately, I’ve been contemplating the name, Immanuel. Or maybe it’s more the conceptual implications behind the name. Deep in the prophetic writings of Isaiah is the foretelling of the Christmas story: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14 and fulfilled in Matthew 1:22-23)
In this sense, the word Immanuel is not simply a name as much as it is a promise—that the God of the universe would somehow be with us, among us, a part of us, as us. Of course, the nation Israel did not know what this meant or how it would come to pass until many centuries later, as revealed in Matthew 1, where it begins, “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about…” (Matthew 1:18).
This simple opening statement sounds like a fairy tale, like “once upon a time,” and indeed, many of us treat it as such. Maybe it’s because of the way we treat the Christmas story—with cartoonish angels and fanciful nativity scenes and little drummer boys. Or perhaps we’ve just heard the story so many times that we’ve become inoculated to the absolute wonder and incredible nature of it. So let me try to say it again.
Our Creator God—the Almighty and Ever-Existing One who by nature exists beyond time and dimension—loves His creation so, so very much that He inserts Himself into the four limited dimensions of human existence, taking on flesh and sinew and swaddling rags in a dingy manger. He picks a nondescript place in an out-of-the-way land at a time of no great significance. He voluntarily restricts His infinite being to an embryo, to a womb, to a virgin birth, to a dusty stable, to poverty, to an immigrant family, to low estate. He feels shock, hunger, thirst, loneliness, cold, mire. He experiences the warmth of His mother’s hug, the milk from His mother’s bosom, the comfort of His father’s gaze, the silence of a starlit night. He takes on the totality of human incarnation in order to experience humanity with us.
And as He grows, He experiences friendship, loss, joy, sorrow, pain, animosity, injustice, love. Stripped of the perfect communion with the Father He had experienced since the beginning of time, He learns how to foster perfect communion with the Father as a human being. And then He shows us how we can have that also. His earthly existence moves from the manger to the river Jordan to the table to the cross to the empty tomb and beyond. And in every moment of it all, He is with us, among us, a part of us, as us.
And this is why His name shall be Immanuel.
Imagine inserting yourself into your creation. Imagine a sculptor inserting herself into her sculpture, or a musician inserting himself into his song, or an author inserting herself into her novel. Becoming a mere stone in a sculpture you created, or a single note in a melody you composed, or a character in a story you wrote. Such kenosis, such humility, such love, is simply beyond our comprehension.
For the Christ follower, the cross is the symbol of our saving redemption. But as I see it, the victory is just as real and alive in the manger as it is on the cross. Because the Gospel—the Good News—is not just that Jesus died for our sins, but more importantly, that He lives and invites us to live with Him, just as He lived with us.
This Christmas season, I encourage you to rediscover the with us God—the same one whom the prophets foretold, the star revealed, the magi sought, and the shepherds worshiped. He shall be called Immanuel.
