Isaiah 7: 14; Matthew 1: 22-24

God-with-us

Emanuel means “God with us,” “God-with-us.”  You and I we get the concept of God, although we have different opinions and visions of Who God is.  You and I also get the idea of “us,” although we may have different view of who “us” is.  There are many ‘usses’ in America these days. So two out of three of these words are understandable to us, but when you add the word “with” things get more complicated, much more complicated.  What does “God with us” really mean?  If you read the Old Testament it will become clear that the people Israel often assumed that God- with- them meant God was on their side and very much not on the side of other people.  They felt so strongly about it that they may have put words in God’s mouth indicating that their opponents would suffer a horrible fate at the hands of God.

                We are approaching NFL play-off time, so pretty soon some Christian player with bad theology is going to be thanking God in front of the camera for having his team win the game that so broke the hearts of their opponents.  I saw a cartoon recently with a football player saying something like this with a sad face:  ”I just want to thank Jesus for having us lose so terribly to the other team.”  We never hear that, do we?  Friends, what does “God-with-us” in our day and age mean?

                We have pretty good idea what God-with-us meant in the times into which Jesus was born.  Here was a people who had bounced back from slavery in Egypt, many years roaming the Sinai desert, the Assyrian and the Babylonian exiles and now they were under the cruel thumb of the Roman empire.

They were sick of their own people allowing themselves to be used by the Romans and selling out.  They were sick of the routine crucifixion of opponents of the Roman regime.  Groups of rebels were forming all around. A group of purist who saw a coming age of justice called the Essenes lived in caves near the Dead Sea where they penned documents on scrolls that tell us about the spirit of that day.  Seventy years after Jesus’ birth the Romans would destroy the temple for good and set the city of Jerusalem on fire and exacted horrible retribution for the first Jewish revolt. The people of those days read Isaiah and saw the hope of a new time.  In general God-with-them meant an actual Messiah who would lead the people to freedom and justice.  Jesus was born into that expectation, that anticipation.

                Friends, what does “God-with-us” mean in our time?  What does it mean to you when you get up in the morning and you face the task of the day?   What does it mean when the days are not so good and the burdens of life press down on you?  Does it mean that every request we throw out at God will be fulfilled? Does it mean we feel God’s presence with us?  That may be different for you here.  What does God-with-you mean when you face illness and grief?

                Three days ago white supremacist Dylann Roof was found guilty on 31 counts for the homicide of unsuspected church parishioners attending a Bible study at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. What did it mean to the victims and to their relatives when the young gunman was invited into their midst, sat down, listened to the Bible study and then opened fire. 

                A video was released last week of orphans in Aleppo, Syria.  One of them pleaded for their life and for compassion from the world community.  Imagine that onslaught by the Syrian government bombers with the help of the Russians and the Iranians and imagine that going on for years until one of the biggest cities in the region is nearly reduced to rubble?  Imagine the voices in our country preventing us from taking these orphans in out of fear they may turn into terrorists one day? What does God-with-us mean to them?  Uncomfortable thoughts aren’t they?

                Friends, in Advent we anticipate the coming of the Christ child and we celebrate the hope for a new age.  In the child God becomes human; as the doctrine says: “fully human, fully God.” From that moment Mary gives birth, all that is God becomes exposed to all that is worldly and human.  God experiences all human suffering intimately.  If God can be crucified, then God can be mortally wounded in a mass shooting or traumatized in an aircraft bombing raid.  The coming of the child called Jesus is the ultimate statement and commitment by God that says:”I am with you.” Nothing can change that.  It will not stop the fact of human suffering in our lifetime, but it is an incredible hope and comfort that God chose to become one of us. God suffers in our suffering and God loves in our love.  God’s grace is all around us, actively, subtly and powerfully at work. Thanks be to God.