God With Us
It’s the start of the Advent season today, and Advent was a word I heard growing up, and never knew what it meant, even into my adult years, and entering ministry.
“Advent” means “arrival. We are waiting on Christmas, the arrival of Christ.
It seems like we’re constantly waiting on something this year.
Right now, we’re waiting for Christmas. Last week we were waiting for thanksgiving. A few weeks ago, we were waiting for the election results—and some would probably say we’re still waiting for them (we’re not, the result are in). The month before that we were waiting to see If schools would go back in session.
The Israelites were familiar with waiting, and especially waiting on the advent—the arrival—of their Messiah. Their promised King who would come and take away every sorrow.
The Israelites were promised they would inherit their land, and that a king would be born that would save the entire world.
And then an angel comes down to an engaged girl and tells her she’s pregnant and that the baby she’s carrying is going to save the world, that that baby is going to be the promised King. Then the angel goes and tells her fiancé the same thing and to not be afraid, and It’s at the end of this interaction that Matthew tells us some of the most important words in all of Scripture:
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.”
Matthew 1:22–23
“God with us” is easy to say It when things are good: when the kids are in bed without fighting, having taken baths and brushed their teeth, when you get that raise, when you get that promotion, when you buy that new house, when we don’t have to wear masks and can go anywhere we like, whenever we like.
It’s harder to say—and believe—that God is with us when things are bad. When it’s 3 AM and all the kids are awake, and when you don’t get the bonus you were counting on, and when you’re passed up for that promotion, and when bills are due and money Is tight, and when we spend half the year watching church online, doing distance learning, not being able to take the trips we hoped and planned for.
And things weren’t so good for the Israelites. They were living under foreign occupation, with Roman soldiers in every city, paying taxes to an emperor that declared himself god, through tax collectors that stole as much as they gave to the government, living on land that wasn’t actually theirs.
But notice that “Immanuel” doesn’t mean “God will be with you.”
It doesn’t mean “God has been with you,” or “God might be with you.”
It means “God with us,” here and now. In the bad times. In the valleys.
The Israelites had a tradition of celebrating in the bad times. Before the Roman occupation, they celebrated under Greece. Before Greece, they celebrated under Persia. Before Persia, they celebrated under Babylon and Assyria.
But Psalm 84 says this:
“Happy are the people whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a source of spring water; even the autumn rain will cover it with blessings. They go from strength to strength; each appears before God in Zion.”
Note that the author that the people are happy, or blessed, because their strength is in God.
They aren’t relying on their own strength. They aren’t relying on their own knowledge or wisdom. They have placed their trust in God.
And it’s not that they’re in a stable place, because the author says that the people’s hearts are “set on pilgrimage.”
It’s a poetic way to say that the people are wandering, that the people aren’t settled down. The author is saying that the people don’t know what is coming next.
It sounds a lot like this year, doesn’t it? We don’t know if everything will shut down tomorrow, we don’t know if everything will be opened back up, we don’t know if a vaccine will be distributed.
But remember, the people are blessed, even as they walk through the Valley of Baca, which means weeping.
Even as the people don’t know what’s next, even as the people don’t have a clue what to do next, even in their sorrow and weeping, the Psalmist says they make it into a place of springs.
Into an oasis.
Into a fountain.
Because their hearts are with God, their sorrows turn into a place where they can draw from.
When my boys wake me up at 5 or 6 in the morning and my five-year-old grabs my face in his hands and gets “nose-to-nose” with me and says, “daddy, can you please come watch a movie with me before work?” You can bet that the sorrow of waking up early turns into a place of strength.
Those are some of the best mornings, and that’s what the Psalmist is saying:
When we give God those hard moments they turn into moments that we draw strength from.
The people go from strength to strength, from valor to bravery, from riches to wealth.
We’re not meant to go from weakness to strength.
We’re not meant to go from sorrow to strength.
We are meant to go from one strength with God to another strength with God.
That’s why the name “God with us” isn’t descriptive.
Immanuel is a promise.
And that’s what we await in the Advent season. That’s the arrival that we wait for:
It’s to see the promise of “God with us” fulfilled.
See, the Israelites go from strength to strength because God is with them.
So when the angel reminds Joseph of the promise of the savior, he’s reminding all of us that God is with us.
He’s reminding all of us that God has already fulfilled what was promised.
Let’s live our lives in a way that proves to the world around us that God truly is with us.
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