The Incarnation is the becoming human of God. It emphasizes the downward movement
of God from the heavens to the earth, and it is described in various ways
throughout the New Testament. Philippians describes it as the "self-emptying"
of God (2:5-11). John describes it as the "dwelling of God among us"
(John 1:14). Matthew describes it as "God with us" (1:23).
Matthew focuses on the names of Jesus. Not only will the Messiah be called
Jesus (the Greek form of the name Joshua, which means "the Lord saves"),
but also he will be called Immanuel (from Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel literally
means "with us Elohim," or "with us God." However, since
Matthew uses the definite article "the," it is made clear that this
is not one of a pantheon of gods. This is "the God who is with us."
Matthew intends to make two things clear by this title. Jesus of Nazareth
is not only God's agent for redemption but the very presence of God himself.
In the Christ, God not only drew near to humanity but personally assumed human
nature. The Creator not only came to His creation but became a part of His
creation.
This is a far different God than any other world religion dare imagine. Most
world religions speak of God as set apart and distant--elusive and mysterious--transcendent
and unconcerned with human affairs. But Matthew speaks of a God who willingly
and lovingly not only closes the gap but enters the stream of humanity. In
an act motivated purely by divine love and expansive grace, God wades into
the river of history and takes on an existence that will change the world
forever.
The need of this text is twofold. First, Matthew makes clear the need of a
Savior. The Messiah will come "because he will save his people from their
sins" (1:21). Second, Matthew highlights the need to understand the nature
of the Messiah. He is to be called "'Immanuel'--which means, 'God with
us'" (v. 23).
When we needed a Savior from our sins, God sent Jesus. When we needed to understand
how to live as redeemed people, God spoke through Jesus. God's answer was
in fulfillment of what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah (Matthew 1:22).
Clement of Alexandria said: "The Logos of God has become human so that
you might learn from a human being how a human being may become divine."
Our Response
The appropriate response to "God with us" is obedience. That obedience
is personified in the instant and radical obedience of Joseph. In Joseph's
character Matthew identifies the first example of righteousness in action
(1:19). By responding to Mary with mercy and compassion, he becomes the model
disciple of what it means to live in relationship with the "with us God."
Thomas Aquinas wrote: "The Incarnation accomplished the following: that
God became human and that humans became sharers in the divine nature."
PREACHING THE TEXT (a full manuscript follows)
Several years ago my wife and I had an interesting thing happen to us. One
of the young ladies in our church had just delivered a baby, and we were going
to visit her at the hospital. It was one of those windy, rainy March afternoons.
We were taking them a plant, with several blue balloons that had "IT'S
A BOY!" plastered all over the sides of them, with a beautiful card attached
to the bottom.
My wife had her hands full trying to get our children under the umbrella,
and so I took control of the plant and balloons. At least I thought I was
taking control of them! Because just as soon as I opened the car door to get
out, a gust of wind caught the balloons, ripped them away from the plant,
and began blowing them across the parking lot, dragging the card behind.
I knew it was raining, but I didn't care. It was as if some force propelled
me to my feet, and before I knew what was happening, I found myself sprinting
across the parking lot, chasing the runaway balloons. The battle was on. The
wind would gust just enough to keep the balloons bouncing up and down with
the currents. But oddly enough they weren't ascending--they just stayed at
eye level. And every time I thought they would drift away, they would be pushed
down again. The only problem was that every time I got close enough to grab
them, and just when they seemed to be within my reach, another burst of wind
would come and blow them away from me again.
I just kept running. And before I knew it, I had run completely across the
parking lot. They had now blown into a lot directly in front of the highway
and had settled down in the middle of a field.
It was my last chance. I knew it was now or never. And so I stepped onto grass
and took off again. I didn't realize how soggy the field was until I stepped
onto it. But I had come too far to stop now.
Thoroughbred jockeys claim that they can feel a racehorse kick into an extra
gear at high speed. Somehow I managed to find another gear I had no idea I
possessed (which wasn't bad considering I had a suit on). I felt like Carl
Lewis!
I was within a few feet of taking hold of the balloons, when a final burst
of wind whipped the balloons up into the sky, sending them flying into orbit.
I was so close to grabbing them, and they took off into the sky as if they
had been shot out of a cannon! It was amazing how fast and far they traveled
once they hit the jet stream.
It was then that I noticed that my run in the field had kicked up streaks
of mud all over the back of my pants and suit coat. Dejected and dirty, I
turned and began trudging back across the field toward my car. I couldn't
believe how far I'd run. At that point I looked up and saw a doctor standing
beside his car. He had been a witness to the entire episode. As I walked past
him, he grinned from ear to ear and said: "Just missed it! Just missed
it!"
Isn't that the way we sometimes feel about our search to know God? We are
continually trying to discover who He is and what He's all about. What is
He like? What is His character? What does He want from us?
From time to time we catch a glimpse of who He is, and we begin to chase what
appears to be understandable and within our grasp. We run as hard as we can,
until finally God seems just within our reach, but in a puff of wind, He is
blown away from us again. And we say to ourselves: "Just missed Him!
Just missed Him!"
If you've ever felt that way, then take heart. If that's been your experience,
you're not alone. Human beings have been on a quest to understand God from
the very beginning. And questions like: "Who is God? What is He like?
What does He want from me?" are the very questions that have been asked
for thousands of years. It can be difficult to break through the shroud of
mystery that surrounds an infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, creator God.
That kind of awesome God seems so hard to get a handle on.
We sometimes feel a little bit like the little girl whose mother found her
crying in bed one night. When her mother asked what was the matter, she answered:
"I'm scared!" Her mother replied: "Don't you know that God
is with you and that He will protect you?" "But Mommy," she
said, "I can't see Him. I need a God with skin on His face."
We can all relate to that. All of us have thought the same kind of things.
We long for intimacy with a Heavenly Father who loves and cares for us. We
long to know Him from the very center of our being. But it seems so hard to
trust One that appears so far away, and so distant, and so difficult to grasp.
We want a God with "skin on His face."
The name Immanuel is an intriguing word. Immanu means "with us,"
and el comes from the root word Elohim, which is one of the Hebrew expressions
for God. If the name were to be translated in its most literal sense, it would
be "the With-Us-God."
The With-Us-God! What a strange thought. God with us! Think about that. Let
it sink in--God with US!
As strange as it may sound to us, imagine how it must have sounded to the
ears of first-century folks. In the Old Testament there was no question as
to who God was. He was not the With-Us-God. He was the Above-Us-God.
Isaiah called him "the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity"
(57:15, NKJV). When the astrologers of Daniel 2 were asked if they could interpret
the dream of the king, they said: "No one can reveal it to the king except
the gods, and they do not live among men" (v. 11). In other words, gods
and mortals could not coexist. And therefore it was believed that the only
way God could communicate to human beings was through messengers sent from
Him called angels.
The gods were considered to be so completely "other" from humans,
it was unfathomable to imagine. They were "out there!" And they
would not allow themselves to draw near to the earth, because "we are
here!" And frankly, that's the way it has always been with world religions.
In Islam, Allah is always the Above-Us-God. We are told that Allah sends angels,
prophets, and books, because he is too holy to come. For God to touch earth,
according to Islam, is called "shirk," and anyone who claims that
God would lower himself to the level of humanity commits shirk, or blasphemes
the glory of God.
No wonder we find it so easy to feel that every time we feel close enough
to touch God and better understand who He is, that He seems to escape our
grasp again, leaving us saying: "Just missed Him! Missed Him again!"
The story is told that in the early 1950s a missionary to Africa contracted
a disease in the African bush called belharzia--a disease still prevalent
today, but far more treatable. The missionary was returned to the States to
be treated for his illness. The doctors struggled and worked to bring about
a cure, but were unsuccessful. In just a few years the missionary passed away,
leaving his wife and three little boys.
For several years she tried to care for the boys alone. She was a nurse by
trade and kept very difficult hours. But somehow, by the grace of God, she
was able to keep her family together and put food on the table. God sent a
wonderful Christian man into her life, and they were married, which also meant
that those three boys had a new father.
His home was on the Oregon coast, where it rained a lot--much different from
what the family was accustomed to. And yet they gathered up their family,
moved them across state lines, and moved in together.
The three boys were not impressed! They weren't sure about this new dad! They
didn't want anything to do with him. They decided to stand back and make him
buy every inch of their affection and love. They were rude, they were cruel,
they were undisciplined, and they were angry! And that dad had to work hard
at it, because they refused to bend!
It all came to a head about Christmastime--the time when there are so many
feelings and memories. And so the father packed up his saw and ax, piled those
three boys in the back of his pickup truck, and headed up into the mountains
to find a Christmas tree.
As they searched through the woods that day, slowly but surely they began
to laugh and unwind. They were beginning to have a little fun when they came
upon the perfect tree! Everybody voted that it was the one to have. Each one
took a turn on the saw, and down it came!
They dragged it back to the pickup, threw it into the bed, and started home.
But on the way, their Christmas tree did what all do in the trip home--it
grew! When they put it in the stand, the problem was obvious. It was so tall
that it scraped the top of the ceiling and bent over against the edge of the
molding. There was a collective gasp! What was Dad going to do about our Christmas
tree?
Somehow that young father recognized the power of that moment. And sensing
it was now or never, he did an incredible thing! He dragged out his toolbox,
went up to the bedroom above the living room, and cut a hole in the ceiling!
He cut through the carpet, through the boards, through the drywall, everything!
It just happened to be the boys' bedroom, and they loved it. They had Christmas
upstairs and downstairs. They were absolutely ecstatic! In that moment he
became a father to them. Through a simple action motivated by love, he said:
"I will do anything to be a father to you!"
You understand that story, don't you? God understands our humanness. He knows
that it's hard for us to understand. He knows that we would struggle forever
with "who He is" and "what He's like." He is aware that
we need a God with "skin on His face."
And in the fullness of time, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling
among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came
from the Father, full of grace and truth." I like the way Eugene Peterson
frames that in his paraphrase: "The Word became flesh and blood, and
moved into the neighborhood" (TM).
Jesus felt our feelings. He knew our pain. He was not ashamed to call us His
own. It was a preposterous exchange, and yet a holy, infinite, all-knowing,
all-powerful, creator God cut a hole in the ceiling of heaven and let himself
through!
He became the With-Us-God. Immanuel. In the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus of Nazareth we have seen God with skin on His face. And in Jesus
we have known the Father!
That's why Jesus said, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father"
(John 14:9, CEV). Jesus IS God with us! Not God above us! Not God around us!
Not God against us! But GOD WITH US!
The immensity of that kind of love is overwhelming. What kind of God would
allow himself to be "shirked" by humanity, condemned and even nailed
to a cross? A God wanting to be known--a God wanting to be understood--a God
willing to be touched so that we would no longer perceive Him as the untouchable,
unreachable God! Christmas is the announcement that God loved us so much He
would go to any lengths to be sure we understood that love.
I recently heard a segment on the radio about a little boy who went to see
Santa at the mall. Santa said to the little guy: "What do you want for
Christmas this year?" The little boy's answer was quite profound. He
said: "Love! I want to be loved." Santa said: "I can do that."
And he wrapped his arms around him and gave him a big hug. That tiny, defenseless
Baby in the manger was God pulling us into His lap, putting His arms around
us, and saying, "I love you!"
Emmanuel! God is with us in Jesus! And not just at Christmas. Because the
final words of Jesus recorded in Matthew's Gospel are: "Remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age" (28:20, NRSV).
