Thought I would offer some encouragement this Christmas. This is my Sunday Message
A Christmas during Hard Times
Emmanuel-GOD with Us!
Introduction: Many of you are suffering grievous hardship these days, so you are in special need of hearing God’s word during the hard times at this Christmas.
Usually, we think about Christmas in connection with laughter, gifts and feasts. We love to think back on that first Christmas when Jesus was born, surrounded by the joy of the kneeling shepherds and the angels singing, “Alleluia, Glory to God in the Highest.” Sometimes are information about Christmas, and scriptural events is more informed by Hollywood movies or pleasant images from Christmas cards.
But the deeper appreciation of Christmas is how God chose for Jesus to be born into the worst, most abject circumstances—a prophetic prelude to how he would die on the cross. But also how that God can birth in your life that is full of problems, negative things, sin, other innumerable issues Himself, His power, His Love, His very own story in your life. God with you.
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!
—Phil. 2:6
To be sure it was God being manifested in flesh that very day.
“Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (
Isaiah 7:14).
The name Jesus was assigned to the child by the Angel of the Lord in a dream to Joseph, as was previously prophesied by Isaiah.
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be on His shoulder; and His Name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (
Isaiah 9:6)
“Without controversy, great is the mystery of Godliness: God was manifest in the flesh (Immanuel), justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into Glory” (
I Timothy 3:16).
God’s manifestation in the flesh (Emmanuel) is known by total truth seekers as the wonder, marvel and mystery of the Incarnation. God became man; literally, “God huddled together with us.”
God became man; He did not create another God beside Himself, He alone overshadowed the Virgin Mary by His own Holy Spirit and conceived in her the manifestation of God in human form. Thus, God became man; Emmanuel, God with Us. Emmanuel was what he was, Jesus was his name.
Why is this important to understand? Because we think if my life ever gets together, if things are only improved by this or that then God will birth in me something great or significant, then my life will really matter.
God who is HOLY, on HIGH, dwells in light that no man can approach. Can’t stand or be in the presence of Sin, bridged that divide between himself and sinful man, using that little preposition, “WITH”
The Accommodation
God is willing to make any accommodations to have fellowship with us. Like becoming human.
Illustration: A hospital patient was in an accident and is left with the sense of smell only. Her mother wanted to communicate her presence, so used a perfume the girl would remember as her mom’s. Now the perfume is not the mother’s essential nature, but is an extension of her real self to communicate on the girl’s level. God also is not essentially a body, but he became human. He extended Himself to communicate on our level so we could respond.
He became Emmanuel-GOD WITH MAN!!!!
What is the significance of with? It means in the company of; alongside, along side of; close to; near to: example: He went with his friends.
We keep on hoping, waiting, trying to get our act together, while missing out that God will come to you right where you are. That is the real Christmas story. The incarnation is that He came to save you from your sins! He comes to us in our messed up lives.
Can you imagine what Mary’s relatives thought about her being an unwed mother? (Social Rejection/Stigma)Even her beloved spouse Joseph thought of “putting her away.” (Misunderstood)
What would Mary have felt at this abandonment? Only later was Joseph convinced by an angel in a dream that Jesus was conceived by the Spirit. Aside from her cousin Elizabeth, she was alone. And Elizabeth didn’t even live in the same town.
When, when Mary was pregnant, just about ready to give birth, she and Joseph were forced to travel (on the road) from Nazareth to Bethlehem, because the Roman occupiers gave orders to enroll in the census.
These orders were issued so that the Romans could make up a list so that Joseph and his relatives could be taxed (government regulations/burdens). They couldn’t even find lodging in a cheap inn, and they ended up in the equivalent of a garage (homeless). No ordinary birth at home, but this birth had to take place without a physician or midwife to help just Joseph (no healthcare).
After the birth, they laid the newborn Jesus in a “manger,” which sounds romantic, but it simply means that his first crib was a feeding trough (manger is French for to eat) for animals. “Swaddling clothes” also makes it sound respectable, but that just means that a first-century diaper was used to wrap Jesus. We use these unfamiliar words to hide the stark, unromantic scene that God set for Jesus’ birth. Born on the road, a member of a despised, captive people who had to walk (are we even sure there was a donkey?) to take part in the census, whose purpose was to help the Romans to better tax the oppressed Jews.
I don’t know what being on the road means in your life, did you ever imagine that God can birth something in you, while your on the road, in transition, in between, moving on.
Put yourself in Joseph’s place —an embarrassing position for him to be unable to take care of Mary. He can’t even rent a room to spend the night. No birthing suite for Jesus. (Poverty/Lack) No one around to celebrate the birth, until God sends the angels and shepherds to brighten the poverty and welcome Jesus’ birth. (No praise crowd, no yes people, no body there to pat you on the back, not much support other than the unseen supernatural help of God)
And then, a short time later, Herod’s soldiers are on the hunt to kill Jesus, and his little family has to flee to Egypt to live for a time as exiles (on the run).
In spite of its poverty, that first Christmas is a deeper consolation for us than if Jesus’ birthday had been an occasion for the jolly time we expect in our own Christmas celebration.
“God, who in sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son (Emmanuel), whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (
Heb. 1:1).
God was speaking in the coming of Jesus. What was God speaking that very first Christmas over 2000 years ago? And why does that matter?
Jesus’ birth shows us that God is with us; no matter how dark, how bleak our situation, God will be our companion in it.
The Unspeakable Gift
Long ago, there ruled in Persia a wise and good king. He loved his people. He wanted to know how they lived. He wanted to know about their hardships. Often he dressed in the clothes of a working man or a beggar, and went to the homes of the poor. No one whom he visited thought that he was their ruler. One time he visited a very poor man who lived in a cellar. He ate the coarse food the poor man ate. He spoke cheerful, kind words to him. Then he left. Later he visited the poor man again and disclosed his identity by saying, “I am your king!” The king thought the man would surely ask for some gift or favor, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “You left your palace and your glory to visit me in this dark, dreary place. You ate the course food I ate. You brought gladness to my heart! To others you have given your rich gifts. To me you have given yourself!”
The King of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ, gave himself to you and me.
God does not promise us wealth or freedom from trials, but he gives us strength to survive by going through them with us. “Emmanuel”— God with us.
We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry
around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
—
2 Cor. 4:8-12,17-18
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