Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. – Isaiah 7:14
What must Isaiah have thought when God told him to write these words? Isaiah ben Amoz was a prophet, living in Jerusalem 680 years before Jesus was born. He lived in the time just prior to the Babylonian captivity (when Babylon overthrew Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah and took many Jews into captivity while destroying the city).
Much of the book of Isaiah contains warnings to the Jews that they need to return to worshipping God or they will be punished. It lays out the takeover of Babylon and the eventual collapse of that great empire. Isaiah then goes on to speak of Cyrus the Great, a ruler of the Medo-Persian empire, who would allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Amidst all this prophecy, warnings of doom and words of restoration, Isaiah suddenly pens the words: "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."
What did it mean? Isaiah himself may not have known. These words were a prophecy that would need to wait for 680 years before fulfillment through the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ. But the promise is there for all of us...His name was to be Immanuel which means "God with us."
"Henry David Thoreau decided to get into Walden Pond one day and sink down until the water was at eye level, so he could see the world through the eyes of a frog. I always thought, How stupid; and really, who cares? But I began to think about Henry David Thoreau this week. I began to think about Christmas, and I began to think about God. Do you realize that’s what God did? The God of the universe, with no limitations, allowed Himself to be born of the Virgin Mary. He looked through human eyes and grew up like you and me, so that He would understand us and know how to relate to us. If Christmas is anything, Christmas is the story of God changing worlds and putting limitations upon Himself. It’s the story of a baby born in Bethlehem, who was more powerful than the Roman Empire that existed that day." John Maxwell
God with us...that is who Jesus is. He is God and He made us, yet He came to earth to live with us. To walk the paths we walk, to be tempted by the same things we struggle with, to know hunger, pain, rejection and sorrow, just as we do. Why...to show us that He knows us, knows what we face, can understand our weaknesses, and wants us even with all our ugliness and sin. He is God with us.
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