Names of Jesus - Part 1 - Immanuel
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.”
Matthew 1:23
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look! the virgin is with child and she is about to give birth to a son, and she shall call his name “Immanuel.”
Isaiah 7:14
Christmas is here! For some of you, that may put a smile on your face and others may look like a deer in the headlights. The Christmas season can be an emotional rollercoaster. We can go from excitement to stress to anger to sadness all in one day. I always start out the season with such anticipation and excitement. I enjoy buying gifts for others, planning the meals, using our Christmas china, and decorating the house. I get maybe one week into that excitement and planning and then the reality sets in. I go into panic mode! I can’t think of the perfect gifts, my children’s lists are a mile long and there is no way we can fulfill all their wishes, I juggle around dates when we are going to celebrate Christmas with family members, the streets are so busy it takes 30 minutes to get to the grocery store, and I can’t get the dang ribbon to look right on my tree. How do decorators make it look so perfect?! The Christmas craziness sets in. I strive for a perfect Christmas season and I put pressure on myself because I’m afraid it won’t be.
Something has to change. I don’t need to strive for a perfect Christmas season. When we strive for perfection with our Christmas, then we are only focused on ourselves. Christmas does not need a person to make it perfect, the One who is being celebrated has already made it perfect. Jesus made Christmas perfect simply by choosing to come to earth for our salvation.
The next four weeks we are going to meditate on the perfect Jesus. We are going to look at names for Him and dig deep into the meaning of those names. When we meditate on Jesus’ perfection, there will be no room for us to strive for perfection.
The first name we will study is “Immanuel.” The name Immanuel means “God with us.” The Holy Trinity has always been with us. Genesis 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” In the beginning there was God, the Spirit, and Jesus.
Jesus was sent down from heaven for a short while to earth. He chose to be the perfect and free gift to us. The gift of salvation that He offers is given freely and His plans are perfect. He gave many signs and prophecies to His people that the Messiah was coming to save them. Some believed the signs and were prepared and others were not.
In Isaiah 7, God is wanting to give some peace and relief to Ahaz who is struggling with how to free Judah from exile when they were conquered by Assyria. God tells Ahaz to ask for a sign of redemption, but Ahaz refuses the reassurance. Isaiah 7:10-14 says, “And Yahweh continued to speak to Ahaz, saying, “Ask for a sign for yourself from Yahweh God; make it deep as Sheol or make it high as above.” But, Ahaz said, “ I will not ask, and I will not put Yahweh to the test.” Then he said, “Hear, house of David! Is it too little for you to make men weary, that you should also make God weary? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look! the virgin is with child and she is about to give birth to a son and she shall call his name “Immanuel.”
God is freely giving something to Ahaz that he needs, and Ahaz is too blinded by his struggles to see it. The promise of the coming baby, the Messiah, has huge implications for Ahaz’s immediate future. The ultimate fulfillment of the sign God is giving to Ahaz points to the future restoration of God’s relationship with His people through the miraculous birth of God in human form. God is telling Ahaz that within a year or two, the time it takes for a woman to conceive and give birth, life as he knows it will drastically change. God is coming to save His people and that salvation is freely given.
This Christmas, can you accept God’s free gift? Can you accept the perfect Jesus that is with you? He chose to come to this cold, hurting, sad, dying world for you. Our Christmas is not supposed to be about making everything perfect to our liking. It is about “Immanuel”, the fact that God is with us. Always and forever, He is with us.
IMMANUEL!
Digging Deeper:
What do you need to do this Christmas season so that you can focus on Jesus Christ instead of yourself?
How is God reassuring you in your present circumstances?
Who can you share Jesus with this Christmas season?