Monday, December 23, 2024
She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: See, the virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.” When Joseph woke up, he did as the Lord’s angel had commanded him. He married her but did not have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son. And he named him Jesus. Matthew 1:21-25
Immanuel...God With Us
Mary had been visited by the angel of the Lord, Gabriel, telling her that she would become pregnant when the Hold Spirit came upon her and she would give birth to the Messiah, the Savior of the world. She was a virgin, engaged to be married to Joseph, and when he found out she was with child, he made a plan to divorce her discreetly, believing she had been unfaithful to him. In Jewish culture of that time, a betrothal was binding, and one needed a divorce to break the arrangement. Soon Joseph also got a visit from Gabriel in a dream telling him not to divorce Mary.
Mary’s baby that was to be born, Jesus, is the promised Messiah, to be in the lineage of David. God made a promise to David that his descendants would sit on Israel's throne forever in 2 Samuel 7:12-13 - When your time comes and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your descendant, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. This covenant made between God and David promises David and Israel that the Messiah (Jesus Christ) would come from the lineage of David.
In the first part of Matthew 1, we see the genealogical proof that Jesus is a direct descendant of Abraham and David through Joseph – not Jesus’ biological father, but his legal father. This is why David was told not to divorce Mary but to take her as his wife and name the baby. - “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” David’s adoption of Jesus was an important part of the plan to bring Jesus into the lineage of David to fulfill the prophecy.
The angel told Joseph some important things about the baby - She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins… and they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”
You shall call his name JESUS because he will save his people from their sins… Jesus means Yahweh saves. The angel told Joseph that he should name the baby Jesus and then told him why… He would come as a savior and come to save His people from their sins. This baby
…they will name him Immanuel, which is translated “God is with us.”
The name Immanuel tells us two things about Jesus – that he is God (God is with us) and that he would be near to us. (God is with us).
Jesus came to earth as a baby – the incarnation – God as man. He became one of us to save us and to be with us. He loved us enough to do this for us – God taking on the weakness and frailty of humans, yet still God! This intertwining of this union of a baby and a holy God shows us we are truly made in His image. We can always come to Him because he did love us enough to come to us.
What hope does this give us today? We know that Jesus was born to save His people from their sins – that is you and me. We have hope that we can find salvation from our sins in him because we cannot do anything in our own power to save ourselves. Jesus did this for us.
We can also find hope because we know that not only did he come to save us from our sins but also to be with us forever.
This quote beautifully states how God is with us...
“In what sense then, is Christ GOD WITH US? Jesus is called Immanuel, or God with us, in his incarnation; God with us, by the influences of his Holy Spirit, in the holy sacrament, in the preaching of his word, in private prayer. And God with us, through every action of our life, that we begin, continue, and end in his name. He is God with us, to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us, in every time of temptation and trial, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment; and God with us and in us, and we with and in him, to all eternity.” (Clarke)
