Carols – Emmanuel
Sycamore Creek Church
December 23, 2012
Tom Arthur
Matthew 1:21-23
Merry Christmas Friends!
As he lay on his death-bed, John Wesley, the leader of one of the most extensive renewal movements in church history spoke these words as his last, “The best of all is, God is with us…I’ll praise, I’ll praise…Farewell.”
Who has ever prayed: God, be with me? I’m remembering a certain Saturday Night Live skit where Jesus shows up at a Tim Tebow locker room huddle. He shows up because Tebow prays for Jesus to be with them. He goes on to say that he always shows up where he’s invited which ends up being a lot of football games, country music awards, and beauty pageants.
The irony of praying, “God be with me/you/us” is that God is already with us. Today we’re going to look at a classic Christmas Carol that points us in that direction. It’s the carol, Emmanuel. “Emmanuel” means God with you.
This carol is the oldest of all the carols we’ve looked at throughout this series, and it’s probably one of the oldest Christmas carols that is still sung today. It was probably an 8th century Gregorian Chant, and was one of the “O Antiphons.” An antiphon is a short song sung before and after a psalm is read or chanted. It is an “O” antiphon because it begins with, well, “O.” “O come, O come, Emmanuel.”
To give you a feel for what it might have been like in its original form, here is a chant version of the O Antiphon, O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
In the 19th century, John Mason Neale, an Anglican Priest, translated this carol from Latin to English. He wasCambridge trained and wrote and spoke more than 20 languages. He had been sent to the poverty strickenMadieraIslands, off the northwest coast ofAfrica, where he founded an orphanage, a school for girls, and a house of refuge for prostitutes. It was in the midst of these ministries that he translated “Emmanuel.”
Here’s a video to remind you of the lyrics of the song:
Matthew 1:21-23
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel”—which means, “God with us.”
Here’s the amazing thing about this verse from Matthew. Matthew is quoting the prophet Isaiah who lived 700 some years before Jesus. And Isaiah prophesies what is happening at Christmas. And he tells us what it means: God is with us!
What sent the shepherds back into the field rejoicing? What caused the wise men to fall to their knees and worship? Not God far away, a distant, uninvolved Creator. Not just a God watching over you, but God with you!
“God with us” is an incredible radical concept. We’ve become a little dull to just how radical this was in Jesus’ day. Moses was only allowed to glimpse the back of God or he would die. The priest could only go in to the holy of holies once a year, and even then he had to have a rope tied to him and bells on his robe so that if those outside stopped hearing the bells, they could drag out the presumably dead priest. And in this context, Jesus, the Word, reason, idea, person of God became flesh!
This is hard to believe at times and so we don’t believe. We don’t feel him. There are no tingles. We go through trials, especially at Christmas, which seems to magnify the good and bad, and we ask, “Where’s God?” Or you’re ashamed of what you’ve done and ask, “Why would God be with me?”
The Point
Before you leave today, I want you to know God is, was, and will be with you! Because he is Emmanuel. It is God’s very nature to be with us.
Emmanuel – God is with you!
The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Luke 1:28
God is the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles! The Spirit of God is called in Greek, Parakaleo. “Para” means “alongside” and “kaleo” means “called to.” Thus, parakaleo literally means “called to your side” or “to come alongside.” You don’t walk alone.
Recently we went to my family’s for Thanksgiving. My brother has two beautiful full breed huskies that are kept in the garage. My son, Micah, who is two years old, was fascinated with these huskies. He would stand at the garage door and just watch them and talk to them. But when we would walk through the garage, he always wanted me to carry him. On the last day that we were there, we ran an errand and came back and parked in the driveway. I asked him if he wanted me to carry him through the garage or if he wanted to walk. He said, “Walk.” And so he walked through the garage with his daddy alongside of him. He was so brave in that moment, but he was brave because he knew that he was not alone. His daddy was alongside him ready to do whatever was needed to protect him from any harm.
If you are alone, God is with you as your companion. If you are sick, God is with you healing you. If you are lost, God is with you as your guide. If you are hurt, God is with you as your hope. If you are weak, God is with you as your strength. If you are sinning, well, God is with you as your conviction and as your savior.
Which brings us to an interesting point. Sometimes God being with us means that God convicts us. Sometimes the comfort comes only after the surgery. As our doctor said to us while Sarah was giving birth, “I love you, and I have to hurt you.” And yet in each of these ways God is with you right now.
Emmanuel – God was with you!
Sometimes it’s easier to see God’s presence in the past than in the present. I think back to the story of Joseph. Joseph was beaten by his brothers, thrown in a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused by all kinds of people. And we read:
But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and He gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.
Genesis 39:21 NKJV
God was with Joseph every step of the way. In the moment, it didn’t look like it. But looking back on it all, God’s fingerprints were clear.
Earlier this year I went with a medical clinic team on a mission trip to Nicaragua and ended up getting sick. I was sick for about three days. One doctor who was with us thought I had pneumonia. Whatever I was sick with, I experienced what it was like to receive care because our medical clinic was there. And when it was all over, I saw that God used that situation to teach me something about what it was like to be the recipient of the kind of medical care that we bring on these clinics. What would it have been like had I been that sick without our medical team there? God was with me in the midst of the sickness.
God was with Corrie Ten Boom, when she was arrested for hiding Jews in her home in the German-occupied Netherlands during WWII. She and her sister were taken to a concentration camp where they were packed like sardines into a dorm infested with fleas. She did not think they could live in such flea-infested dorms. But what she later came to realize was that the camp guards left them alone because they didn’t want to enter into the flea-infested dorms. Among other things, this allowed them the freedom to worship because the fleas kept the prison guards out. God was with them, but they could only see it in hindsight.
My friend Norm was in prison after a long downward slide with alcohol. He had hit bottom and wanted to commit suicide. He prayed to God to give him something on work detail the next day that would let him kill himself. As he walked through the line, the guard gave him a broom. He cried out to God, “How am I going to kill myself with a broom?” In that moment he met God. God was with him all along the way, and it was only in hindsight that he saw it.
Or I think of that loved one you’ve been praying for, for years. You’ve almost given up praying. Your praying may have even become dull and stale. You may have given up hoping that they would come to know the Lord. But then you get a call or email and hear, they met Jesus and they called because they wanted to make sure you knew. God wasn’t absent in all those prayers, God was with you, and your loved one. You just couldn’t see it till much later.
Emmanuel – God will be with you!
What if you could look ahead in your life? What could happen to you? Cancer? Marriage? Divorce? A new job? A lost job? College? Whatever happens, know that God will be with you.
Think about what Mary had to look forward to from the point at which the angel comes and tells her that she’s about to give birth to a child even though she is a virgin. There’s all these events:
- Conception – God will be with her.
- Joseph’s acceptance – God will be with her.
- Travel on a donkey – God will be with her.
- Birth in a barn – God will be with her.
- Travel to Egypt (away from Herod) – God will be with her.
- Lost her son in the temple – God will be with her.
- Attending a wedding where her son turned water into wine – God will be with her.
- Her son headed out to become a homeless, wandering preacher – God will be with her.
- Her son’s corrupt trial – God will be with her.
- Her son’s crucifixion – God will be with her.
- Her son’s burial – God will be with her.
- Day 1: the grave is quiet – God will be with her.
- Day 2: the grave is quiet – God will be with her.
- Day 3: Resurrection – God will be with her.
- 40 days later and her son’s ascension to heaven – God will be with her.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble [NO!] or hardship [NO!] or persecution [NO!] or famine [NO!] or nakedness [NO!] or danger [NO!] or sword [NO!]…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35, 37-39
Nothing can separate you from God’s love. Nothing! Not doubts. Not mistakes. Not disappointments. Not failure. Not sin. Nothing! God will never leave you—never forsake you. You will never be alone!
Compassion literally means to “suffer with.” God doesn’t promise that there won’t be suffering but does promise that you will not suffer alone.
Even though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me.
Psalm 23
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8
Is, Was, and Will be. God is with you. God was with you. God will be with you.
There is no question that God is with you. Here’s the real question: Are you with God? Give yourself to God today. How do you do that? It’s like a wedding ring. I gave Sarah a ring that we made from different rings in my family. Her engagement ring and our wedding rings did not cost us anything. But when we accepted them, they cost us everything, our entire lives. We gave each other ourselves. God is, was, and will always be with you, but that’s what it means for you to “be with” God.
Prayer
Emmanuel, you are, were, and will always be with us. Let me respond today by giving myself back to you in love. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Recent Comments