God with us

Matthew 1:18-25

Emmanuel—“God is with us.”

            It’s such a well-known name that we may miss how revolutionary this is. With Jesus coming into the world, God is with us. When things are rough, God is with us. When things are good, God is with us. When our life is full of despair, God is with us. This is the promise we have through Jesus with the coming of the Holy Spirit—that there is no place or time that God is not there.

            This son of Mary, through the Holy Spirit, is given two names: Emmanuel—“God is with us”—and Jesus—“He saves.” These are two promises we have—that God is with us and that God saves us. Yet, the history of the world proves that this kind of saving is not mere protection from forces of evil. Evil is alive and well, but because of this God with us, whose journey leads us to the cross, we know that there is no place full of suffering where God will not be.

            From a lowly beginning to a lowly ending, Jesus doesn’t set out on an expected course for the Messiah. He shatters expectations. First there is Mary and Joseph. The account of the Gospel of Matthew focuses more on Joseph, whose expectations are obliterated by an unexpected pregnancy. So are Mary’s, of course. This was not the engagement present they were looking for. From the beginning, God elects to enter humanity in the humblest of ways, against convention, partly to demonstrate the holy-ness of this birth but partly I imagine to demonstrate that God is with us no matter the discomfort where we might find ourselves. No matter the poverty of our circumstance.

            Christmastime falls in a time of year both beautiful and sad. Christmas joy meets sadness for losses—a missing loved one or a sense of incompleteness. The season magnifies the good and the bad. For many, it’s both—joy and sadness intermingled. All our losses are brought home to us as we return home, or stay home, or avoid home. In these hardest moments of homecoming, that God is with us can feel like little comfort. I mean, who cares if God is with us if nothing changes? But that’s just it: things do change when God is with us. Subtly, imperceptibly if you’re not looking for it, God with us changes everything. It is a reminder that not only are we not separated from the love of God but also that the love of others missing from our lives is reflected back in that love and, truly, they are right here with us.

            At its best, this season is a reminder that whether we are together or apart, we are tied to one another in deeper ways than we can see. The darkest nights can do nothing to separate us from this love. Of course, it helps to be together—to celebrate this season with one another. I profoundly hope that this season will involve all that for you—that you’ll get to be together with everybody you want to see (and none that you don’t). Yet, there will come a day—for all of us—when this is not true. In those days most of all we need to remember this God with us is a flickering light in a world that is at its darkest. He doesn’t remove the darkness; he just provides the smallest light

            This Christ-child comes humbly, yet even the stars bend toward the manger. The most powerful things in the world are like this, hidden in plain view. I hope in this Christmas season that you are able to take in some of these best things—the smiles of children, happy voices, quiet moments, inner joys—but, ultimately, whether we have the best of all Christmases or if it’s the hardest reminder that things are not right, the baby in the manger came for more than moments.

            Every child will grow up, every “wish upon a star” may become cynicism, every perfect gift or loving card can turn to silence. The Christ-child was born in that humble place not to live there in eternity but to go somewhere, to do something. The story moves on—through sorrows and joys. You don’t have to live in that Christmas simplicity forever, because Jesus didn’t. These days are joyful and sad, because they are the introduction to the story.

            In Matthew’s Gospel, which we read this year, Jesus’ birth is followed by an exodus back into Egypt, a refugee from King Herod’s violence against the children of Galilee. The joy of the manger doesn’t last very long before they flee in terror to an unfamiliar land. This is a reminder that Christmas might be snuggling up next to the fire and sipping hot cocoa, but those things are only so magical because we know they don’t happen every day. Christmas happened once, we celebrate it once a year, but this Jesus—this Emmanuel—comes for the whole picture. God is with us in all those things. There is nowhere you can hide from it. There is nothing you can do to avoid it. There is no loss so great, no behavior so depraved, and no relationship so broken that God does not meet us in the depths.

            Christmas comes in the darkest days of the year for us—a solemn reminder that all this joy is contrasted by a world of darkness. Life is beautiful because it is fragile, but we have a God who has gone there first. God with us—Emmanuel.