Matthew 1:23

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us). ESV Matthew 1:23

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I thought it would be a good time to examine some of the names that are used to reference Jesus in the Bible. The inspired writers of the Bible used very descriptive names for God; names that had special meaning. We’ll look at three names for Jesus in the coming weeks that have special meaning. The first name is Immanuel.

I had the occasion recently of chatting with a fellow who was passing out religious literature downtown. He was parked near the post office and was handing out his literature to anyone who would stop and listen for a few seconds. I stopped and agreed to listen to him for a moment if he in turn would show me the same courtesy.

The gentleman thumbed through one of the brochures and gave me an overview of its contents. I forget the number, but the brochures had been printed in an impressive number of languages and distributed to a like number of countries. I listened patiently to what he had to say.

When my turn came, I asked him to tell me who Jesus was. Somewhat taken aback, he told me that Jesus was a sacrifice and that he was God’s son. I pushed the issue by telling him that I believed Jesus was much more; that he was God. With that assertion, it was clear that I had crossed into territory where he was unwilling to go. He simply would not assert that Jesus was God.

Unfortunately, proclaiming Jesus as God is territory where a lot of people either fear to tread or refuse to tread. Many world religions acknowledge that Jesus was a good man, some go so far as to call him a prophet, but only in Christianity do we see Jesus acknowledged as God. Where do you stand? Have you come to grips with who Jesus really was?

It was the prophet Isaiah, somewhere around 700 BC, who penned the words that are repeated here in Matthew. A child would be born and his name would be Immanuel, which means God with us. That child was Jesus, who was born to the virgin Mary in the most humble of settings. Isn’t that fascinating? God with us; Jesus.

Think about it for a moment. God left heaven, a place where no sin, suffering, death or darkness could penetrate and took on the image of man and walked with us. Without ceasing to be God, He became a man; fully God yet fully human.

As you make preparations to celebrate Christmas, please don’t forget that when we celebrate Christmas, we are in actuality celebrating the arrival of God in human form.

-Ken Askew