Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14
Last night my husband reminded me as we passed a home with a decorative star poised over its chimney, reminiscent of a star which Matthew includes in his telling of the Christmas story, that his gospel essentially begins and ends with the same theme. God is with us. It is not a new theme in the Bible. Not at all. After spending many months with Jesus Matthew wants to remind his readers that above all there is hope because God is with us.
We first see this introduced as the angel shows up to calm Joseph's fears. Think about what Jospeh must have been feeling: fear, confusion, betrayal, maybe even righteous indignation. Don't we all share those feelings at one time or another? The angel's message is pregnant (pun is intended) with what Joseph needs most. He needs to know that God is near. That he hasn't somehow incurred God's wrath. That he isn't going into this thing called marriage with his pregnant fiancé alone. Mary's pregnancy would have likely been the gossip of the day. I'm sure he would have much preferred anonymity! But God knows what's going on. He even has a name picked out for Mary's baby. He tells Joseph the name of the child should be Jesus which means Jehovah is Salvation. Don't worry, Joseph, this is The Child who will save you...and everyone else!
Matthew recognizes that this moment fulfills the sign that God gave to Ahaz roughly 700 years before the birth of Christ..."the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isaiah 7:14) He chooses to include it as an aside of sorts. He's the narrator who whispers, "Psst. By the way..." And like so many asides, it gives us vital information that changes and deepens our perspective. Matthew's Jewish readers (for whom Matthew wrote his gospel) would have immediately recognized the name Immanuel. It means "God with us." God is near. He is showing up in a baby! Astonishing! Breathtaking!!
This reminds me of the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem." The final stanza of this beloved hymn reads:
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born to us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
Abide with us, Immanuel. Be born in us, Jesus. This is the gospel! This is the good news that everyone had been waiting for since God extended curse and promise together in Genesis 3. "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15) God has brought about the reconciling of the human race to His glorious throne!
As Matthew writes through his gospel, he shows us the remarkable way that Jesus the Man/Jesus God lived, breathed, interacted, taught, healed and related. We see that Jesus is indeed, God with us. He has endured hardship, including the incredible and humbling adversity of the cross perfectly. He has become the propitiation, the payment, for every wrong thing we have ever done. When we live in this good news we are able to fulfill the last words of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28:19a, 20b
I am with you always. ALWAYS!!! I can hardly contain myself. God is with me! #bestgiftever
That is the merriest of anything Christmas imaginable!!!!
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