God's Sign to You

Text: “14 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)

We expect a lot from this season, don’t we? What other season of the year is expected to be “magical”? Have you ever heard someone talk about a “Labor Day miracle”? Anything is possible, I suppose, but it’s not a ‘thing’ like “Christmas miracles” are. Is there any other day of the year that inspires stories of the “Ebeneezer Scrooges” of the word having their lives transformed like Christmas does?

And it tries to live up to our expectations. It is certainly refreshing to have our news sprinkled with stories of random acts of kindness at this time of year. And yet, for every poor family that receives a new car from their neighbors, for every school where lunch balances are anonymously paid off, for every child who miraculously recovers from a serious illness, there are still so many others who don’t get better, who have to try to scrounge up the money to get by.

So many of our hopes and dreams for this life and what it could be are wrapped up in this one day (no pun intended). We expect a lot from it.

Someone wise recently shared a post on social media that contained a very important reminder: “You are not responsible for making this time of year ‘special’ or ‘magical’ for everyone around you. Jesus already did that.” Nothing we do or add to it can possibly make it more special or magical in any real sense. Please don’t misunderstand me—the point is not that you should lower your expectations. If anything, we don’t expect enough. We worry about all the right presents, flawless lights, and perfect decorations, when God wants to give you infinitely more. You and I strive for “magical” when what God wants to give you is “miraculous.” We expect a lot, but what God offers is actually far more.

The most important gift at Christmas is not any of the ones under the tree. The most important gift at Christmas is the gift that God has given you in Jesus Christ. I know, you’ve heard that countless times. But what does it really mean? Let me try to explain what it means through a story that I came across just recently.

There was a father who got the phone call no one ever wants to get. His son was being rushed to the emergency room after a terrible accident. By the time he got to the hospital, his son was already in emergency surgery and the next hours passed in that strange dimension which is hospital time, where everything is a blur and each second ticks away at an agonizingly slow pace at the very same time. It wasn’t until the doctor finally came out and talked to him and the rest of the family that reality began to set in. They’d repaired the worst of the damage, but that was all they could do for the moment and the prognosis was not good.

It wasn’t until later that night (actually very early the next morning), after leaving his son under the watchful care of the nurses there at the hospital, when he was finally back home and had laid down in bed, that the prayers came in earnest. He pleaded with God to help his son. Desperate, he searched his mind for anything that he could offer God, something that he could promise in order to try to persuade God to heal him. He would give just about anything. He had to find something to try to convince God to hear his prayer and heal his son. But it didn’t take long before the realization settled in that there was nothing. Even if he sold everything he had and gave it to the poor, it had all come from God to start with. How would that gain him anything with God? If he promised to devote his life to helping people, isn’t that just what the 10 commandments demand: love your neighbor as yourself? There was nothing he could offer, nothing he could promise God to try to guarantee his son’s healing.

As if in answer, this verse came to mind: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” He’d heard it a number of times lately as we prepared to celebrate our Lord’s birth, but now it meant far more.

It was as if God’s answer was “No, there is nothing that you can promise me, nothing that you could offer. You have nothing to give me, nothing with which to bargain with me on behalf of your son.

“Let’s talk instead about what I have given you. I don’t promise that your son will get better, at least not in the sense that you mean it. But I do promise that, even after his skin has been destroyed, yet in his flesh he will see me—he, himself, will see me with his own eyes. Everything that I permit in this life is to draw him—and to draw you—closer to me and to that destiny. All of it is according to my plan to bring you to my side where you will dwell with me, where I will be your God and you will be my people, where there will be no death or mourning or crying or pain because I have made all things new, and where I will wipe every tear from your eyes.

“How can you trust that while your son is literally lying in a hospital bed? How can you trust that I will do all of that for him? Here is your sign: the virgin has conceived and borne a Son who is Immanuel, who is God with you. Right now it may seem as if you needed to persuade me to care about your son, to beg me to do something. The truth is that, before the creation of the world, I knew him by name, chose him as my own, and planned for your son’s salvation. I decided that I would send my own Son and give My Son’s life for yours. I decided that, on the cross, My Son, Jesus Christ, would be pierced for your transgressions and crushed for your iniquities; that upon Him would be the chastisement that brings you peace; that with His stripes you are healed.

“When you brought your son to be baptized, just as I commanded you, My Son, Jesus Christ, was there. Your son was joined to Him in His death, he was buried with Christ so that he also shares in Christ’s resurrection. That water was not plain water, it was the washing of rebirth and renewal by my Holy Spirit, ‘so that being justified by his grace [you are] heirs according to the hope of eternal life.’ (Titus 3:7)

“When you brought your son to my altar to receive my holy meal, it was not simple bread and wine, it was the living bread that came down from heaven. It was the very body and blood of Jesus Christ and, ‘Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.’ (John 6:58)

“No, you have nothing to give me. Isn’t it far more important, right now, to talk, instead, about what I have given you?”

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this man is certainly not unique. His anguish over his son is repeated countless times in each of your lives in countless different forms. And, for each of us, His answer is the same: Tonight the Lord, Himself, has given you a sign: the virgin has conceived and given birth to a son who is Immanuel, “God with us.”

We do look for the wrong things from this season. You and I strive for “magical” when what God wants to give you is “miraculous.” We expect a lot, but what God offers is actually far more. The most important gift is not under the tree or in any random act of kindness, it is the gift that God has given: His Son, Jesus Christ.