GOD IS WITH US
Matthew 1:18-25
For years now, some people have chosen to dress in the strangest ways at Christmastime!—with clothes that seem to resemble angels and ancient peasants and shepherds and even ancient Middle East kings. In what we have often called the Christmas “pageants,” the old story of the birth of Jesus Christ is dramatized so that we can relive the magnificent event of the birth of Christ.
And, of course, things don’t always go as planned. A few years ago, the church we were pastoring had a Christmas pageant, complete with a live donkey. The only problem was that the donkey acted like a donkey! He’d been out in the cold air long enough that when he got his chance to come inside, he parked himself in the waiting area off from the stage and wasn’t about to budge. Mary and Joseph were ready to make their appearance in the pageant, and despite all their coaxing and nudging and poking, that donkey had made up his mind: he was too comfortable to get up and go anywhere! Phooey on Mary and Joseph! Mary and Joseph had to walk to Bethlehem unaided by the donkey that night!
The funniest part happened when the whole production was all over. One of our teenage girls who was accustomed to dealing with horses had taken on the task of getting the donkey through the foyer of the church and out the front doors to where the other animals in our live nativity were being kept for the night. That donkey stiffened its legs rigid, determined not to be moved! The girl was pulling the donkey by herself across the carpet of the foyer. One of our rather refined women determined that she wasn’t going to stand by and let a donkey get the best of us, so she got behind the donkey and started pushing. The rest of us should have come to their rescue, but they were honestly doing a pretty good job of forcing the donkey toward the outside doors, and, besides that, we were all laughing so hard that we wouldn’t have been much help at that moment anyway!
One of the funniest things I ever heard of happening in a Christmas pageant supposedly took place at a well-known California church. It was quite an elaborate replication of the Christmas story—complete with angels flying high above the holy scene (thanks to carefully engineered guide wires). But at the height of the glory of the Christmas story, one of those guide wires snapped on one end. It was a frightening moment for the poor volunteer who had agreed to being hoisted into the air, depicting one of the angels proclaiming the birth of the Savior. The poor man started spinning around, above those seated at the front of the sanctuary. Those who were watching shrieked with panic for the man, though he was securely connected to the wire.
Now I don’t know about you, but when I spin around too many times, it does something terrible to my stomach. That’s why I can’t go on amusement park rides that spin around too much. And this poor angel must have had the same problem, because he quickly became nauseated and his nausea quickly escalated to the point where he could no longer contain himself (if you know what I mean). And it might have been all right, except for the fact that he was still spinning above the crowd when he could no longer contain himself—and a wide circle of the crowd below him began to shriek for more than just fear for the man spinning above them! I guess it gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, “the sights and sounds of Christmas”!
But we do love the sights and sounds of Christmas, don’t we? The nativity scenes—or “crèches,” as they’re often called—that grace many of our homes are wonderful reminders for us too (and a whole lot less risky than big productions!) My parents still display in their home the little nativity set that they’ve had since I was a child. Early in our marriage, Cindy’s mother gave to Cindy and me a beautiful ceramic nativity scene that every year finds a prominent place in our home—with beautiful little figurines—and someone made a larger nativity set for us just a few years ago that we love, too.
I love the tremendous display of nativity scenes we see at Christmas every year. And I’m especially fascinated with the larger-scale ones that show the details on the faces of Mary and Joseph and the other personalities we envision being there on that holy night. But I suppose that all too often those faces look a little too perfect compared to the faces we see in our mirrors every day. (I still wonder from time to time where the old face in my mirror came from!) Their faces and the scene look perhaps too serene and perfect—not at all like my life or yours! It’s hard to discern much stress and heartache in the lives of those perfect figurines sitting so still before us! And the contrast might seem so great that we could sense an unintended disconnect with the people of this scene—that Christ came into a perfect world of perfect people. And not one of us can relate to such people—and if God only relates to perfect people and perfect scenes, then I guess that counts us all out!
But what Christ Jesus came down to the earth to say to every person who might sense a disconnect with perfect figurines is that God knows all about our pain and trouble. Christ did not come to a perfect little spot on the earth or to perfect people. Jesus was born in a dirty little stable intended for animals. His parents weren’t perfect people—and those who surrounded Him after His birth were typical shepherds who spent most of their lives out of doors watching sheep. This was not a refined scene! Christ came down to live among raw humanity in an imperfect and sometimes frightening world! Christ came to people just like you and me; He came to share with us, to bear the burdens of life with us, to suffer terrible things in our behalf—because we’re not perfect people and because we needed a Savior! Christ is not separated from the pain and the loneliness and the heartbreak that so many people feel in their lives! He has been here: He knows, He understands, He cares.
Listen now to part of the wonderful Christmas story as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew—
[Read Matthew 1:18-25, NLT]
The reality that God would come to us is the most wonderful demonstration of His love for us! One of the most beautiful names attributed to Christ, reflecting His love for us, is the name “Immanuel”—“God with us.” The beauty and the wonder of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ is that God came to be with us.
I was talking with a friend one day and he told me that he had a new boss. When I inquired about this new boss, he simply said, “Let me just say that all he cares about is making money.” And so, unlike the former boss that understood some of the unique circumstances in my friend’s life, this boss just cares about the bottom line—making money.
I wouldn’t want to have a new boss who started off our working relationship saying, “Now let’s get one thing straight right now. I don’t care about you. I’m not interested in your family. I’m not interested at all in your personal life or in any of the circumstances of your life. All I’m interested in are the results. All I’m interested in is how much money you can make for me!”
But God is just the opposite of that, isn’t He? God is interested in my home and my family. God is interested in my wife and my children. God does care about me personally—about my health and well-being, physically, emotionally and spiritually! He is interested in all of the circumstances of my life! He is God with us!
The birth of this Immanuel—God with us—came about in a supernatural way—often called “the virgin birth.” The truth is that not one of us can adequately explain the virgin birth of Christ—though people have been trying to explain it for centuries! But scripture declares clearly that Christ was born to a virgin—that the child she delivered was conceived through divine means. It was part of the Old Testament prophecies that looked toward the coming of the Messiah. The virgin birth of Jesus was one of the Old Testament prophecies that Matthew’s Gospel declares Jesus fulfilled.
I suppose essentially it means that Jesus came from God. He is God’s Son. The scriptural emphasis of the virgin birth is not primarily on Mary, but on the creative life-giving power of Almighty God, who sent His Son to be with us.
Jesus is not the product of evolution, the highest achievement of the human race; he is the product of the intervention of a transcendent God into human history. (John Thomas Randolph)
And God intervened in human history because He loves us; He cares about us. And this love caused Him to send His Son to us in order that we might be saved from the destruction of our own sins. That’s even what Jesus’ name declares! The meaning behind names in the ancient world was extremely important. The angel of the Lord who appeared to Joseph in a dream told him that he was to name this newborn child “Jesus”—which is exactly what Mary had been told by the angel Gabriel.
What’s so significant about Jesus’ name? The name “Jesus” means, “the Lord saves.” The angel of the Lord went on to tell Joseph that this child would “save the people from their sins”—offering forgiveness and new life to all who came to the Father through Him. Jesus would Himself be the doorway to God the Father—by paying the penalty for the sins we committed! Jesus, by His very nature, is the Savior!
There had been a great Jewish expectation of a Messiah who would “redeem” Israel from Roman tyranny, but there was little expectation that this Davidic “King” would give His own life as a ransom to save His people from their sins. From the very beginning of the narrative about the birth of Christ and the ministry He would have among the people, Matthew helps us focus on what is central: being saved from our sins—the greatest need of humanity. This passage of Scripture orients us to the essential nature and mission of King Jesus—saving people from their sins. And that’s where we as a church find our essential mission as well—helping others find the Savior! As a church, that is our reason for being!
C.S. Lewis once wrote—
The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God (C.S. Lewis).
The reality that God would come to us is the most wonderful demonstration of His love for us—and the most marvelous message we have to share with our world! And God’s coming to us was in order to save us from our sins—to bring forgiveness and new life to us and to free us from the bondage under which our sins inevitably put us. God has come to us! God is with us!
The great people of faith have always claimed the promise that God is with us! Just think about it.
• Moses, when caught between the Pharaoh of Egypt and the deep Red Sea in a seemingly hopeless situation, believed that God was with him and Moses went forward and trusted God to open a way. And God did!
• Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego went into the fiery furnace, a seemingly hopeless situation. They trusted God to be with them—and He was!
• Young David stood before Goliath. What chance did a young boy with a slingshot have against this giant of a warrior that was terrorizing the people? But David believed God was with him and God gave young David the victory that day!
Now it’s interesting to note that when the writer of Matthew’s Gospel wanted to capture the meaning of Christ’s birth, he recorded for us Isaiah’s prophecy, calling the Messiah “Immanuel”—which means “God with us.” That’s what Jesus is all about—God with us! That’s the promise and the hope of Christmas—that God is with us! When we accept that, such a promise can absolutely change our lives!
• We are never alone…God is with us.
• In our most frightening times…God is with us.
• In the heartbreaking circumstances of life…God is with us.
Such love and grace provides help and enduring strength in our lives! God is with us!
It took place on Christmas Eve, several decades ago, just outside a small town in the Midwest. A man’s wife and children were getting ready to go to the Christmas Eve service at their church. But the man wasn’t going—as usual. “I just can’t understand what Christmas is all about,” he’d told his wife once again. “I just don’t get this claim that God became man.”
It had been snowing all day and it was beginning to snow even harder as the man’s family drove off to church without him. He moved his chair closer to the fireplace and started to read his newspaper.
A little later there was a sudden “thud” at the kitchen window—and then another, and another. When he went to investigate, he found a flock of birds out in the back yard. They had been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, were trying to fly through the kitchen window.
Now this man was really a kind man by nature, and he was concerned about the plight of these birds. He tried thinking of something he could do so the birds wouldn’t freeze in the storm that was coming in that evening. And then it hit him—“The barn!” That would provide a wonderful shelter!
He put on his coat and boots and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn and opened the doors wide and turned on the light—welcoming the little creatures to come in. But the birds didn’t go into the barn.
“Food will bring them in,” he thought, so he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn. But the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to fly in circles through the blowing snow.
He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around waving his arms frantically. They scattered in every direction—except into the warm, lighted barn.
He thought to himself, “I suppose they find me a pretty strange and terrifying creature, and I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know that they can trust me.” Puzzled and dismayed, he thought, “If only I could be a bird myself for the moment, maybe then I could lead them to safety.”
About that time he heard the church bells ringing, proclaiming on Christmas Eve that Christ was born. And the man stood silently for a minute, recalling his words, “If only I could be a bird myself…maybe then I could lead them to safety.” And in a humble bow of his head, the truth settled in over him. “Now I understand. Now I see, God, why You had to come. Now I understand why You had to become a man.”
There is no greater blessing than for God to dwell with His people. Jesus is the One called “God with us”—and He is. He is with us today. He stands with us in our imperfect world. He understands the stresses of human life. He knows what it’s like to be tempted. He understands the grief of loss. He knows what it’s like to experience rejection and disappointment. He came into this world and walked among us and lived among us—and He truly understands our very human struggles.
Because He loves us so much, He came to us. We couldn’t have reached out to where He was, so He reached out to us. And He is today Immanuel—God with us. He is to our confused and baffled world “God with us.” It’s the great news that changes our lives and has the potential of changing the lives of those around us: God is with us—because He truly loves us!
This morning I want you to close your eyes with me for a moment. And, with your eyes closed, I want you to try to envision God with you…sitting right beside you on the pew. I want you to envision Him extending to you some gesture of genuine love and concern. For some of you it might be that He is putting His arm around you. For some of you it might be that He reaches out and holds your hand. For some it might simply be that He places His Hand on your shoulder or maybe even on the top of your head in a sort of blessing. Perhaps some of you would sense the hug of God this morning. God is with you—because God really loves you. The coming of Jesus brought such marvelous love into our day-by-day lives—because God is with us. And He is with you right now. Let’s talk with Him.
