Immanuel revisited

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14 ESV)

God tells King Ahaz that He will send him a sign. A virgin would find herself pregnant. This is such a surprising picture that scholars over the ages have tried to argue that the word simply means “young woman”, not “virgin”. However, careful analysis suggests that this word was perhaps the handiest one that our author could have found to describe such a person. Astoundingly, she will go on to bear a son while still a virgin and will have a ready-made name for Him,

“Immanuel ... God with us”.

“God with us” – or, perhaps, “May God be with us”. A cry of despair, perhaps, of a young woman who found herself pregnant and felt that she was about to be publicly shamed? But a cry of alarm would hardly fit the description of someone in receipt of a sign from God, a special, startling message that would make a king sit up and take notice. No, here is somebody who, quite outside the usual order of nature, is pregnant by God’s plan and design without having known a man. What is she going to call this portentous child? This is nothing other than a work of God. This is “God with us”.

Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus (1:18-25) tells us that God dwelling with His people is at the heart of Christmas. Quoting Isaiah 7:14, Matthew points us to Jesus as fulfilling it. This is the One about whom an angel spoke to Mary’s husband-to-be Joseph when he told him that the child would be born by the power of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of being our Saviour. So important is this truth to Matthew that he echoes the Isaiah verse again, right at the end of the gospel, when he quotes the risen Jesus’s words to His disciples:

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

I, Jesus, am “God with you” – this time by my Holy Spirit.

A Scottish preacher once used these words in a prayer:

“He came a long road tae find us, and a sore travail He had afore He set us free.”

Has the truth of the huge distance in time and space which God covered to find you and transform you really dawned on you yet?

May you have a truly blessed and meaningful Christmas and much to celebrate in this coming year of grace 2018.

Your Invisible Battle

“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15 ESV)

These words, not long past the start of the Bible, are often regarded as the first inklings of the great news of salvation which came to fruition in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are often used near the beginning of services of lessons and carols to mark the opening of the unfolding gospel story.

The serpent has induced Eve (and, through her, Adam) to rebel against God by eating fruit which He has forbidden to them. God has found them out and now pronounces sentence, first to the serpent, then to Eve, then to Adam. The words above are said to the serpent. They predict a battle between his descendants and the woman’s, spanning the generations. They suggest that the woman’s offspring will win, ultimately delivering a fatal blow to the spawn of the serpent.

As this year closes I have been looking at an extraordinary passage in the very last book of the Bible, Revelation. It comes in chapter 12. A pregnant woman with a heavenly crown including twelve stars is about to give birth to a male child. A great red dragon confronts her, eagerly awaiting the birth so that he can devour the child.

The woman is not the iconic Virgin with Child of the postage stamp but most likely Israel, and the twelve stars are the twelve tribes of Israel. The man child is the Messiah to whom Israel gives rise. The dragon is His enemy and ours, the Devil. Happily the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will win.

We are too little aware of the unseen spiritual war that is going on around us.

It reminds me of something I experienced years ago. It was in connection with the security of the manse I was going to live in when I moved to Banbury as a minister. Unknown to me, a church official had long since directed that security bolts be fitted to the windows of the manse.

One week I was away on holiday. I had dutifully activated the security bolts before I left. Thieves at some stage tried to get in. The security was just enough. There was one weak point where they probed very hard indeed, but they didn’t get in. A battle to make my property more burglar-proof had been won - though I did not even know till later that it had taken place.

There is a spiritual battle going on around each one of us that is every bit as real. We may never suspect the unseen forces that are trying to destroy us and our interests. Yet they are absolutely real. Let nobody kid you that Satan doesn’t exist.

Believe also in the existence of a God of battles who fights for you. His Son, Jesus, prays for us, that our “faith may not fail” (Luke 22:32). And the praying Saviour is the Saviour who wins - despite the fact that He seemed to be defeated on the cross.

Do you know the battle that is going on around you? Your children? Your friends and family? Take nothing for granted.

Don’t ever underestimate the strength, the cunning, the determination of Satan. But also don’t overestimate how vulnerable Jesus seems to be. Satan may be the comeback kid, but our Jesus always has the last word.

Salvation to God
Who sits on the throne!
Let all cry aloud,
And honour the Son:
The praises of Jesus,
The angels proclaim,
Fall down on their faces
And worship the Lamb.

Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

And to end with the words of Revelation 11:15 that Handel harnessed so magnificently in the Messiah:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.”