1 Introduction God is with us Matt 1:18-25 St Stephens Belrose Dec 20, 2015 God is with us! Immanuel! God is with us! That is my title and my theme for this morning. In the pages of the Bible Jesus has many names and many titles. We have heard many of them already this morning. And we use many of them very often. But this morning s reading from Matt 1 offers us a title for Jesus that we do not use often. It appears only here and in Isaiah 7 and 8. It is of course Immanuel which is Hebrew for God with us or God is with us. So this is the day to meditate on this unusual title for Jesus. What does it mean? What can we learn about our Lord from it? How can we live as the people of Immanuel? And of course it appears in Matthew s account of the birth of Jesus. So this being Christmas it is the perfect time to remind ourselves of how Jesus was born and to explore the significance of this title which for Matthew was a key to understanding what God was doing with Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus. Words:???? What I want to do is to take the three elements of this title one at a time: God. With. Us.
2 But first let s remind ourselves of this delightful story. There is something refreshing and simple about the way this narrative begins: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about (18). It probably feels this way because we have just waded through chapter 1 and a long list of names most of which we do not recognize! Read 12-14. (See Amon in v10!). So what is Matthew doing by giving us this long genealogy? Well he is putting the birth of Jesus in a context. He is connecting the birth of Jesus to the long story of Israel. Some 2000 years of Israel s history are drawn together in this list: from Abraham to David; from David to the exile; from the exile to the birth of Jesus. The birth of Jesus is part of God s long- running commitment to the descendants of Abraham. And Matthew is also raising expectations. Matthew lists the generations in three sections of 14 generations each. Now 3 x 14 = 6 x 7. Which means that the birth of Jesus marks the beginning of the 7 th era in Israel s story. Seven is the number of completion. And so in this way Matthew is telling us that the long story of Israel is reaching its goal in the birth of Jesus. The birth of Jesus is not just one more birth in a very long line of births. It is in a sense the climactic birth and the beginning of the final stage in Israel s story. Which brings us back to the birth itself. Now Joseph and Mary were betrothed to one another. That means that they were more than engaged but not quite married. In those days the marriage process included a year or so in which a couple were pledged to be married (18). They did not live together nor did they sleep with each other. But they were regarded as husband and wife and could only end the relationship through divorce. Now one of the lovely things about Matthew s account of Jesus birth is that it is written largely from Joseph s point of view. Luke places Mary at the centre of his account and we meet there a tender- hearted, excited and faithful young girl swept up into events over which she has no control. But in Matthew me meet the older Joseph soberly meeting his responsibilities and eager to do his duty to his community, his God and to his fiancé. Over the past few months at our house we have been watching a family of brush turkeys laying their eggs in a pile of mulch in our front yard. The mother turkey does her part by laying a clutch of eggs in the mulch. But after that she takes a vacation it seems. All the work from there on in is done by the father. He spreads out the mulch and
3 digs a deep hole (all backwards by the way) for the eggs to sit in. Then he comes back to the nest several times a day to re- arrange the mulch to keep the temperature constant for the eggs. So for 8 weeks or so we have been watching the father turkey steadily doing his duty to his little family. And in the past week or so the population of the neighbourhood has been increased by a steady succession of little downy chicks making their way off into the wide world. In the same way Matthew s emphasis is on Joseph doing the right thing by his new little family. So Joseph and Mary were pledged to be married. And during this stage of betrothal Mary discovers that she is pregnant. At first Joseph assumes that Mary has become pregnant in the normal way. This would have been therefore an adulterous relationship and Joseph feels he has no choice but to end the betrothal by divorcing Mary. But being a good man he had decided to do this privately rather than publically and so to save her from the disgrace and shame which would normally accompany such a turn of events. But then one night in a dream an angel appeared to Joseph and said read vv 20b- 21. And so Joseph did precisely what the angel commanded him to do. He took Mary home with him as his wife but did not sleep with her until she gave birth to a baby boy. And then when the child was born Joseph gave him the name Jesus. This is how Jesus was born. And Matthew attaches a comment to the narrative in v22-3 (read). This is from Isaiah 7:14. The surprising series of events leading to Jesus birth fulfills Isaiah s prophecy to Ahaz. And this prophecy helps us to understand the meaning of Jesus birth: it means Immanuel, God is with us. Now being with someone can mean many things. What might Matthew mean here when he says God is with us? 1. God is with us Explanation Well we can start by asking what Isaiah meant by it when he first said it to King Ahaz. What he meant was God is on your side and he won t let you down. Young King Ahaz was facing a terrible choice. At this time Israel was divided into two Kingdoms: the northern kingdom had the name Israel and the southern Kingdom was called Judah. The northern Kingdom Israel was allied with the Arameans and together they were threatening war against the southern Kingdom. And this because they were all facing yet a greater danger from the powerful Assyrians who were threatening them all from the
4 east. Ahaz had two options. Seek help from the Assyrians. This would solve the immediate problem but leave his kingdom subject to them. Or fight it out with his nearer opponents first and then the Assyrians after that. And so God sends Isaiah with a prophecy: Immanuel God is with us. In other words God is on our side. Don t make an alliance with the Assyrians because you have God on your side to protect you. God knows you are under threat but he is on your side. Stand firm then and trust him. Illustration Application So what might this mean to us? In every age the Church faces this same temptation to make an alliance with the powers around us. Here in Australia in the early decades of the 21 st century we face just such a temptation. I think the Church broadly senses its declining power within our culture. We are struggling to pass on our faith to each successive generation and to make disciples. Each decade throws up some public issue where our historic position is challenged by the course of history and we seem powerless to persuade our fellow citizens of the merits of our traditional practice. Same- sex marriage is the current issue. And we will lose this argument as well. And so we cast around for alternate sources of power. We look to the State and to the law. Organisations spring up to get prominent Christians elected to parliament. In this way we hope to gain some kind of increased capacity to influence the course of history. Or we look to the State as a source of money. In this way we have hoped to build Christian institutions which will embody and advance our beliefs and practices. As a result all our new Christian schools and our enormous welfare organizations are completely dependent on State money. I think in time we will come to see that as a mistake. Or we look to the entertainment industry. We decide that our gatherings must have all the production qualities of the TV age. In that way we will hold everyone s attention and so win them to our beliefs and values. Is there an alternative? Yes there is. It lies in the knowledge that God is with us. He is on our side and he won t let us down. And that in turn calls for prayer: concerted, long- term, disciplined prayer. You get a clue about what God will do in the next generation by listening to the prayers of the current generation.
5 We have sensed the call to prayer in this past year. Our leaders have called us to pray and have set an example of prayer. We need I think to grow in that direction. Turning to prayer will of course look like doing nothing. Unless you believe that God is with you and that he is for you and on your side. That he is listening and highly motivated to move in response to our prayer. God is with us. Let s seek him together. I wonder though if you sense a danger with the idea that God is with us. The idea that God is with you and you alone can create a very destructive way of thinking. The jihadists believe that and it turns them into murderous monsters. 2. God is with us Explanation So let s think for a moment about us. Who is the us in this expression God is with us. For Isaiah and Ahaz the us was Judah, the southern Kingdom in the 8 th century BC. But what about Matthew in the 1 st century AD? Who was he thinking of when he used this expression? One possibility is that he meant humanity as a whole. And that meaning is certainly there in the birth of Jesus. In Jesus God came to us and became one of us. This is how John presents the incarnation. In fact John skips the birth stories altogether to tell us that the Word became flesh and lived among us (Jn 1:14). I ll come back to this wonderful truth soon. But I think Matthew had something narrower in mind. The long genealogy of chapter 1 is not the story of every human being. It is the story of God s people, the descendants of Abraham. And as we saw he shapes the list to suggest that with the birth of Jesus the final stage in the history of God s people is about to begin. And there are two places in Matthew where he draws out the implications of Jesus presence with his people. One is in Matt 18 where Jesus says where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them (18:19-20) and in Matt 28 where the risen Jesus sends his disciples out to make disciples of all nations and assures them that he will be with them to the end of the age (28:20). I take it then that Matthew has in mind God s new people, the disciples of Jesus. God is with his people as always. But now his people are no longer the descendants of Abraham but the disciples of
6 Jesus. They include people of all nations who have been baptized into the name of Jesus and who obey his commandments. Illustration Application How can we apply this to the Church of today? You may have heard me in the past calling for greater reverence in our gatherings. It seems to me we are losing a sense of God s presence with us when we gather. Here s a way of reclaiming that. Jesus teaches that when two or three gather in my name there am I in the midst of them. So what is it that transforms a gathering of ordinary people into a gathering in which Jesus is present? It is the name of Jesus. We should I think pay more attention to making it clear that this is no ordinary gathering. That we meet in the name of Jesus. Now Jesus has many names: Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb of God among others. We are considering one today: Immanuel. And each name catches up some aspect of the story about Jesus. As this passage teaches us he is Jesus because he will save his people from their sins (21). He is the Lamb of God because in his death he takes away the sins of the world. He is Son of God because he was raised by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the Christ because he fulfills the hopes and expectations of the OT prophets for an anointed King. Each name in other words evokes some part of the Jesus story. And so we gather in the light of that story and we articulate that by declaring the names of Jesus. And I think we should be more intentional about that. At the start of our gatherings there is I think a wonderful opportunity to make it clear what this meeting is all about. We meet today in the name of Jesus would be an excellent start. But so would some brief statement about Jesus: who gave his life for the forgiveness of sins or who is Lord of heaven and earth.. or rose from the dead in the power of the Spirit I say this not just so we can be theologically correct but so we can claim the promise of Matt 18:20: there am I in the midst of them We are that new community of Jesus disciples and when we gather in his name he is with us. He is Immanuel: God with us. And we need to claim that promise and live in it. God is with us. Jesus is here with us at this very moment. He is here not in the magic of a sacrament. He is here not because we enjoy some beautiful music. He is here not in the beauty of our architecture or furnishings. He is here not because we feel some
7 kind of religious feeling. He is here because his name is here and is being declared. He is here because his people open their mouths and speak of him, bear testimony to him, because we confess him. We should I think make more of that moment in which we define the reason for our gathering so we can enjoy more of Jesus presence with us. God is with us. He is here. He is with us. 3. God is with us Explanation I have said a lot already about the two least important words in this expression: with and us. What remains then is to consider the subject and most important word in the expression: god. What can we learn about God from this passage? Here s two things. The first is that he is an active God. Active and engaged and at work. Here is a young Jewish couple waiting to be married. Then God sends his Spirit and Mary conceives a child. Much has been made in Church history of the fact that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. Too much in fact. And not enough of the fact that Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit. We are told that twice in this short passage (18,20). The conception of Jesus is God at work. There is no doctrine of the trinity as such in the NT. Instead we see God at work. Nowhere more clearly than here. God himself speaking through his prophets and his angels steering the course of history. The Spirit at work deep in the body of Mary. And a boy child who receives the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins and Immanuel because he is God with his people. The God of the Bible is not a distant and detached God who set the world off and then stepped back to watch what would happen. He is instead immersed, engaged, active and energetic. And he is so to this day. His presence here today and with all who gather in the name of Jesus is not just to be a benign, vague presence. He is here to save the world from the ravages of sin. He is here to set the world right. He is here to give the life of the age to come. He is here to be the King of his Kingdom. He is here to be known and loved and obeyed and worshipped. The God of the Bible is an active God. He is God with us for the world. The second thing we can learn about God from this passage is that He is amazingly committed to the human race. We are his image bearers and he wants us to rule over creation as his wise representatives. Sin has reduced us and diminished us and drawn us away from our God- given vocation. But from the moment he called Abraham God has been at work to restore humanity. And
8 this work reaches its final stage with the birth of this new kind of human being, this Spirit- flesh human being, Jesus. Now here is something to meditate on. In the moment that Jesus was conceived something changed in God. That s right: the unchanging God changed. How? This baby Jesus grew into a man. He died on a Roman cross and on the third day he rose from the dead. He rose by the power of the Spirit but he rose as a man. His was a bodily resurrection. And he ascended into heaven as a new kind of human being: a Spirit raised human being. And he sat down at the side of his Father to rule over all creation. A man seated on the throne of heaven. A human being welcomed into the Godhead. Something decisive changed in God himself when this baby was conceived. So here are two things we can learn about our God from this text: he is deeply committed to the human race and he is active to set things right in our world. He is God with us. Conclusion So, God with us. God is with us. May you and your household know the reality of God with you at this season of the year. And may we as a community of Jesus disciples experience his presence today and throughout the coming year. This is the measure of God s amazing commitment to humanity. The birth of the baby Jesus means that God is deeply committed to human beings. He is God with us; God committed to us; God at work for us. When we reach out to serve our neighbor we are sharing in God s amazing commitment to humanity. When we open our mouths to speak about Jesus we are sharing in God s amazing dedication to human beings.
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