Emmanuel - God With Us

Greetings

Good Evening!! I’m so glad to see all of you, if we have never met before, my name is Tim and I’m the pastor of this fine church. I’m so grateful that you have chosen to allow me to help you welcome Christmas Day into your life.

It’s quite something isn’t it, that for 2000 years we’ve celebrated the same person’s birthday? Certainly the way that we celebrate it has changed over the years and, as the commercials on our TVs remind us each year, Christmas has become a bit more about us and a lot less about a baby named Jesus who was born in a manger. But none the less, I think its a striking reality that we still celebrate this day that commemorates the birth of a Jewish baby in a barn in the Middle East 2000 years ago. Not many people can boast such a legacy. In fact, I’m not sure anyone can, besides this Jesus himself.

So tonight I simply want to tell you a story, a story that will help you learn, or help you remember, or maybe simply renew your understanding of just what it meant for this baby named Jesus to be born into this world.

Over the past several weeks at First UMC Fort Pierce we have been talking about names that were given to God in the Old Testament (which is the first 2/3rds of the Bible — the part that happens before Jesus is Born. We’ve seen how those names tell us something really important about who God is. We’ve learned through them that God is all powerful, that God sees and cares for the struggles of humans, that God is forever loving and caring, and that God is the source of inner peace.

And Tonight we will look at one more name for God, which comes from the Old Testament book Isaiah, but is repeated in Matthew’s Gospel.

So you may remember that there was a young woman named Mary, who was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph. Now things were quite a bit different 2000 years ago than they are today. It was not normal for an engaged couple to live together and have children prior to being married.

But Mary became pregnant, though this was no ordinary pregnancy. She conceived her baby by the power of God’s Spirit. An angel told her so.

So when she told her fiance Joseph he said… exactly what we all are thinking: Wow that’s super awesome! No that’s not it at all! He was like um yeah right. Ok dear.

But Joseph was a very kind man, and he didn’t want to subject Mary to more trouble than she was already in, so he decides he’s going to break off the engagement quietly. He wasn’t going to post all dramatically about it on facebook or anything that we do today.

That’s where we’ll pick up the story. This comes from Matthew 1:20-23

Matthew 1:20–23 NRSV

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.”

So of course we know that the name of this baby is Jesus, but more importantly than that for us today is that name that is recalled from the Prophet Isaiah: Emmanuel — which is Hebrew for “God is with Us.”

A Long Time Ago

In order to truly understand the significance of “God with us” we need to take a look at the larger story here, and it’s a story that begins on like page 1 of the Bible. God created the world for the specific intention of being a part of it. So when God created human beings, he placed them in a garden called Eden and he walked with them there. He was in community with them, which was and still is God’s ultimate desire.

But it wasn’t long before humans began to follow after what was evil rather than living out the good good plans that God had for us. And we continued to spiral out of control, down a path towards destruction. Throughout history God would step in and make an attempt to be with humans, but humans would continually choose not to live in a manner that recognized God’s presence among them.

And so God chose a people, a people called Israel, whom he would attach himself to and live amongst. He rescued those people from slavery in Egypt and travelled with them as a cloud and a pillar of fire, eventually living within their midst in a place called the tabernacle and then the temple, a place where the people could go to meet with God. The only stipulation was that they must live in a way that showed that they loved God and loved one another. But even then, these people could not quite figure it out.

You see, even though God’s presence was among the people, only certain persons called priests could actually enter into God’s presence. And so they wandered. And they wondered if God really cared. If God really was who God said he was. And they again failed to live into God’s intention for them. And then Israel was destroyed. The temple laid in ruins. The people were carried off into exile, and things seemed bleak.

But in the midst of exile, prophets came to tell the people that their God would deliver them. After years passed, the people returned, the temple was rebuilt, and the people waited for God to restore them. They waited in darkness as their land, the land God once promised to them, was passed from empire to empire. They were home, but their home was not really theirs. Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Finally Rome. The people wondered, for 400 years if God was ever going to save them.

And then in the most unexpected way, God showed up. Not in the temple. Not in a cloud or in a pillar of fire like he had so many years before. No, this God showed up as a baby, conceived within the womb of an unwed teenager, in a no-name town called Nazareth, in a beat down has been territory called Israel, in the armpit of the Roman Empire.

But it was here, in the midst of these lowly people, that God came to be with us. Born an infant, in a stable to poor parents who were traveling, this Jesus came to truly bring God’s presence into our world.

No Temples Required

Jesus, the baby born in a manger would grow to live as a man who people could see. A man who people would encounter and have their lives changed forever. Because this man Christ Jesus, was much more than a man. He was and is the very person of God, who comes to rescue us from ourselves, make us new, and unleash us into the world as people who carry the message that God is with us.

And although, Jesus died on a cross, rose from the dead, and then ascended into heaven, we still have that very gift of God with us today. No temples required, no priests only clubs. Each of us here today has access to God’s presence because of this poor boy born to a poor family in a smelly stable.

And this is very good news. It was very good news to an entire people group who had been waiting on God to show up, it became very good news for the entire Roman world, and it is still very good news for you and I today.

Because I don’t know if you’ve looked around, but the world is a tough place to be. It’s a tough place to exist. It’s tough just being human in the year 2022. And the 2023 prospectus isn’t getting much better. Our world is broken, and in many ways our human community is in pieces. Even our community here in Fort Pierce Florida comes face to face with our own struggles and brokenness.

So the message that God is with us, still in this very age, in this very place, is a message that I need to hear. And I bet that it’s a message that you need to hear to. God is with you.

Even when it feels like you are very much alone. God is with you.

Even when it feels like darkness is closing in. God is with you.

Even when you get an unexpected diagnosis. God is with you.

Even when you go home to the memories of a loved one who is passed on. God is with you.

Even when you don’t have a home to go home to. God is with you.

Even when you feel the shame of the mistakes you’ve made. God is with you.

Even when you go to the liquor store more than you go to a church. God is with you.

Even when you look for love and acceptance in destructive places and relationships. God is with you.

Even when the phone doesn’t ring because your kids never call. God is with you.

Even when there’s more bills than money. God is with you.

Even when everything seems broken. That’s when God is most certainly with you.

God is with you because God is for you. God is the God who unconditionally sees you, unconditionally wants to transform your life, and unconditionally wants you to know the peace that surpasses all understanding. That peace is the gift of Christmas. That peace came to dwell among us as an infant in a manger. That peace came and endured the violence of ridicule, and the chaos of a Roman Cross so that you and I and everyone in this world might come to possess the peace that comes from a relationship with our creator.

And so I don’t know what it is in your life that is causing you to question whether God is really there. And if God is really there, if God is really for you. But let me assure you that God, God is truly with us. God is Emmanuel. And on this day when we celebrate like people have for 2000 years, I need you to really hear that. I need you to really know that. And I need you to really allow yourself to breathe in that truth.

I can’t promise that the world is going to become a better place. But I can promise you that when you embrace the truth that God is with us, that it makes this world a more bearable place. And that’s an ok place to start, as we together — the people of Fort Pierce seek to make the world a better place together. This place may not be the garden of Eden, but it is a place where God is in community with us, and it’s a place where God is calling us to be in and create communities and churches where God is very much present, and where God’s love can be shared in real and tangible ways between a bunch of people who just need to feel like they aren’t alone.

So my hope is that you take the gift of Christmas, the gift of God with us, and that you cherish that reality and nurture it until it stokes in you a fire that is unrelenting. Until it moves you to seek a new and deeper relationship with the God who would stop at nothing just to be with you, and connect you to others who will hold you when things get hard. That’s what love looks like, and that my friends is what Christmas is really all about.