We are in the third Sunday of Advent, Advent being the season before the birth of Jesus where we prepare ourselves for His arrival into our world. As I shared last week Advent is a season of preparation, it is an anticipation of Jesus’ arrival. Unfortunately this season before Christmas has become a premature celebration in our culture. We spend so much time shopping, baking, decorating, going to performances, etc. that by the time Christmas Day is over we are completely burned out and are ready to move on to the New Year. The birth day of Jesus becomes anticlimactic. I saw a commercial on television the other day reminding us of the “25 days of Christmas,” because 12 days aren’t enough for shopping. Of course their 25 days begin on December 1st and end on, you guessed it, December 25th, Christmas Day. Traditionally the 12 days of Christmas, as the song goes, is meant to begin on Christmas Eve day and run until January 4th. It is meant to be a celebration of Jesus’ coming rather than a shopping extravaganza. And so during Advent we focus not so much on celebrating the birth of Christ, but on the expectation of his arrival. We are like the Jewish people before Christ who were waiting and longing for a Messiah, who would save them and deliver them.
During Advent we tend to focus on passages of the Bible from the prophets who predicted the coming of a Messiah who would deliver God’s people. So far this Advent we have focused on the prophet Isaiah, specifically Is. chapter 11 and 35. Today on the third Sunday of Advent we move one step closer to the arrival of the Son of God as we look at Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah chapter 7 and also at the birth narrative in the gospel of Matthew, focusing on Joseph’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy and the angel’s visitation.
In Isaiah 7, which predates the other two Isaiah passages we have had so far, Isaiah is writing over 700 years before Jesus is even a glint in Mary’s eye, at a time when his country, the nation of Judah, is being attacked by two other nations, Syria and their brothers and sister of Israel (Ephraim), because Judah would not join in their coalition against the powerful nation of Assyria, in fact they joined Assyria instead. So now they were hoping to conquer Judah to overthrow the king and put someone else on the throne who is more favorable to their war efforts against Assyria. Through Isaiah, God makes a promise to Judah to deliver them from their enemies, and he even offers to give the king of Judah a sign, any sign, no matter how big, to prove it. I have to admit I’m a bit jealous of King Ahaz, how many times have I wanted a sign from God but never got it, and here is God giving him the equivalent of a blank check signed by God. King Ahaz could have gotten anything he wanted, God even demanded it, but he refused. I suppose he was trying to appear all spiritual by saying, “I will not put the Lord to the test.” God was not happy with his response, and so he got angry and he told him, “I am going to give a sign anyway.” This sign will prove to you that I will save you and deliver you. What is that sign? “A virgin will be with child, and bear a son and he will be called Immanuel. By the time he is old enough to eat curds and honey, he will be old enough to reject evil and choose good.”
The sign is in reference to a young woman, perhaps a virgin bearing a son who will change their situation. Within three years of this prophecy it appeared to have been fulfilled because their enemies were routed by the Assyrian army, and so the prophecy appeared to be complete, or was it?
Now fast forward over 700 years, to about 3 BC, to a carpenter named Joseph who decided to quietly divorce his recently betrothed because she is pregnant with a child that is not his. Because of this choice, Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream who tells Joseph, he should not be afraid to complete their engagement and be married because Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit, in other words the child would be a miracle from God. Then the angel tells Joseph something very significant about this child, he is to be named Jesus, and he will be called Immanuel, referring to the passage we just read from Isaiah. Apparently the prophecy was not complete because Jesus is the true fulfillment.
Remember, God’s promise through the prophet Isaiah was that he would deliver his people. And now in Matthew’s gospel we are shown, that the prophecy is being fulfilled because this child was about to enter the world. There are two names in reference to this child which this passage mentions which are both significant to who this child is and what that means for us today.
1. Jesus - God saves you from your sins
The first name is what his actual name would be, Jesus, pronounced Yesu, which is short for the name Yeshua or Joshua as we know it in English. The name Jesus was a very common name, like John or Joshua today, but it had a lot of significance to the Jewish people. The name Joshua means “the Lord saves.” It reminded the Jewish people of their ancestor Joshua who, 1200 years earlier, delivered the Israelite people into the Land God had promised them. The image of Joshua is one of a person who took refugees wandering in the dessert and by God’s strength gave them a home, a land flowing with milk and honey. Joshua was used by God to fulfill God’s promise to his people.
Now the angel tells Joseph there is a new Joshua, a new deliverer, this Joshua/Jesus will deliver us from a different kind of wilderness to a different kind of Promised Land. The angel even says it explicitly, “he will save his people from our sins.” The wilderness we will be delivered from is our sin, which poisons us, it poisons our relationships with others, and most importantly it poisons our relationship with God. And unfortunately all of humanity suffers from the same condition. Isaiah himself later wrote, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we proudly display our righteous deeds, we find they are but filthy rags (Is. 64:6).” Jesus as the new Joshua would deliver us from our sins. For those who believed in him, He would cleanse the poison from within, and make us pure, restoring our relationship with God. He would bring healing into our life and in our relationships with others. It all ties together, this is why the OT is so important in understanding who Jesus is, and why it is important to look at the prophecies about him. NLT John 12:47 If anyone hears me and doesn’t obey me, I am not his judge-- for I have come to save the world and not to judge it.
a. Jesus saves us from the penalty of sin
The Bible promises us that he saved us from the penalty of sin, death, and eternal separation from God. NIV Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
b. Jesus saves us from the power of sin (Rom. 6)
Sin no longer has any power over our life because through Jesus Christ the Bible tells us we have died to sin.
NLT Romans 6:6 Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.
This means sin does not have to have control over our life any more, we have been set free from sin in order to follow God.
c. Jesus saves us from the practice of sin (1 John 3:9-10; 5:18)
In other words we don’t have to sin. God gives us the strength to resist temptation, and he fills us with his Holy Spirit so that we can follow God’s purposes instead of sin.
NLT 1 John 5:18 We know that those who have become part of God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot get his hands on them.
The name “Jesus” was more than a name it was a statement about who he would be. Through him the Lord would save us, delivering us from our bondage to sin, therefore setting us free to follow God out of love.
2. Immanuel - God is with you
The second name or title which the angel reminded Joseph was just as important. The angel said he would be called Immanuel, which means God is with us. Jesus would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah spoken 700 years previously. God would be with us through this man. The angel already told Joseph the child was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit, in other words the child was both divine and human, and since this child was to be called God with us. We put these two together and it points to an amazing reality, God had come in the flesh as a person. God came to visit earth in the person of Jesus as God the Son. Think about that the infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of the universe came as a human child, vulnerable, defenseless, dependent on others to meet his needs. It is just as mind blowing for us today to imagine that through Jesus, God was with us, as I’m sure it was for Joseph back then. A passage from the Bible reminds us of this truth.
NIV Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
How do you pack all of God in a human being and yet still be God at the same time? I have no idea. It’s mind boggling, but still true. In Mark Lowry’s song, “Mary did you know,” he asks questions of Mary about Jesus. Did she know her baby boy would walk on water? Did you know your baby boy would give sight to the blind man? And the question that blows me away to think about, “Did you know…when you kissed your little baby you’ve kissed the face of God?” Did Mary and Joseph comprehend the full impact of what was going on at the time? How humbling and frightening of a responsibility they had ahead of them, raising the Son of God. And you thought you were overly protective with your first child.
This is the amazing truth about the Christian story of Jesus’ conception and birth. God is literally with us in the person of Jesus. This is where Christianity diverges from all other world religions. Most religions believe in a God that is a supreme being of the universe. Most people would agree with that. But the miracle of Jesus’ birth and what is central to the Christian faith is that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. Why would God do such a thing, make himself vulnerable?
Illustration
I am reminded of the story of the boy who saw a bunch of ants trying to bring a piece of food back to their ant hill. The boy decided he wanted to help the ants by picking up the small piece of food and bringing it to their ant hill, but every time the boy would bend down to pick up the food his shadow would fall over the ants diligently trying to carry the food, and out of fear they would scatter. The boy tried this approach several times and every time it had the same result. So the boy thought, “how could I let the ants know I am just trying to help them by picking up the food and moving it closer to the hill?” But finally he decided the only way he could communicate this to the ants, and to show them how much he cared, was to become an ant himself. Then they would not be afraid of him and he could tell them the story of how he was trying to help them.
Why did God came to earth? To demonstrate his love for us. To let us know He cares about us so much He would sacrifice and come to earth as a lowly human being and die for us. In fact that is what the Bible says in Phil 2:6 (NLT):
Though he [Jesus] was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.
God isn’t just a force or energy, or a distant judge trying to get you to shape up or ship out. Rather because of this promised Immanuel, God communicated to us that He is a personal being who cares for us, listens to us, and loves us. He wants us to know we are not alone, no matter what we go through in life, no matter how isolated we feel, God is with us.
This past week I was meeting with a young man in jail and I asked him, “what is the toughest thing about being in jail?” What do you think his response was? My first guess would be freedom, not being able to go where you want when you want, being locked in a small place. Actually that was his second response. What he said was hardest for him was loneliness. Not being able to see parents, family, and friends. It seems we take them for granted until we cannot be with them.
People are in jails of their own fashioning in our country, in that they isolate themselves from the world. Whether it is overworking yourself, hiding behind a computer, surfing the internet, vegging in front of a television, even spending a lot of time in a hobby, whatever it is, I find that although the population continues to grow, we are more isolated that ever before from others. We also isolate ourselves from God, not trying to get close because it means we might have to change, even if it is for the better.
God doesn’t want us be alone, God doesn’t want us to be separated from him or from healthy relationships with others. He wants us to be close like family. That’s why God came to be with us so that we could experience his presence and be a part of his family, as he walks with us and talk with us. That is why Jesus’ last words to his disciples were, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" NIV Matthew 28:20.
Like bookends to Jesus’ life, he is born Immanuel God with us, and he leaves with a promise that he will always be with us. Even though Jesus the Son went to sit at the right hand of God the Father, Jesus promised us he would be with us through his Spirit in a very real and tangible way. Through the Holy Spirit, God would be with us. We would never have to be isolated and alone because God would be within us until that day when we are in God’s presence in heaven.
What’s in a name? Everything when the names are Jesus and Immanuel. These names have changed the lives of many throughout the last 2000 years, and hopefully they have changed you. Through Jesus the Lord has brought salvation through forgiveness and freedom from sin. Through Jesus we can have God with us through his Holy Spirit.
Have you received Jesus as Savior and Immanuel? If not receive him today.
