Isaiah 7:10–16 Unsolicited, God offers to fulfil any request Ahaz wants, but Ahaz raises doubts. This annoys God, who was attempting to provide evidence of God’s presence with Ahaz and his people. God pronounces that a baby will soon be born from a young woman, who will name her baby Immanuel. This baby will save Ahaz’s kingdom from his enemies before he is even old enough to walk.
Psalm 80:1–7, 17–19 This psalm starts by acknowledging the sovereignty of God over the Israelites and basically pointing to the history they have together. Then it begs plaintively for the end of the people’s suffering, asking that God would restore things back to the way they were. Finally, there’s a kind of reminder toward the end that the Israelites had been God’s chosen people, and it asks for such favour again.
Romans 1:1–7 This text is effectively a long introduction to the message coming after it, but it’s still important. It’s referring to Paul in the third person, aiming to lend credence to his calling as a messenger of the gospel. It’s also laying out the most important specifics of what the gospel is about, and since it’s written to non-Jews, or gentiles, it’s explicit in stating that Jesus and his message were for them, and that he loved them and not just the people of Israel.
Matthew 1:18–25 When Joseph discovered his fiancée, Mary, was pregnant, he wasn’t so sure he bought the “I was impregnated by the Holy Spirit” thing, so he was going to break it off quietly. But then an angel spoke to him, confirming that this was what was going on and that this was part of the fulfilment of prophecy, which meant this baby was kind of a big deal.
Ahaz—The king of Judah who is under threat from the kingdoms of Syria and Israel to the north, who are plotting to join forces to crush him and his people.
Immanuel—This name means “God is with us,” which is one of the names used in reference to Jesus as well.
Cherubim—Of course we think of fat little winged babies when we hear the word cherub (singular of cherubim), but they actually have a job aside from being cute. They are believed to be attendants of God, serving at God’s pleasure, and they are some of the most revered angels, second only to archangels.
Ephraim/Benjamin/Manasseh—The tribes headed by Ephraim and Manasseh are two of the original tribes of the Israelites who stand in resistance against the siege by Judah and Syria on David’s kingdom. The Benjamin reference is a little hazier, since he isn’t a descendant of Joseph like the other two, but it likely refers to a faction within Syria that also opposes the invasion.
“Immanuel,” the name God uses to refer to the coming baby, directs attention to the real point of the miracle God announces in Isaiah. Though the birth of the baby may, indeed, be miraculous, the miracle to which God is pointing is that God is with Ahaz and the people of Judah, even when they feel alone and are wracked with worry about their own demise.
The proclamation of the miracle to come in the child’s birth is an imminent event, while also referring indirectly to the miracle of Jesus’s birth to come, as stated nearly word for word in the Gospel according to Matthew. Remember which Gospel we have this week? Got to love those biblical Easter eggs.
In the psalm, it’s not uncommon for us to see these sorts of “transactional” prayers, where the psalmist (in this case, David) is trying to strike a deal with God. Basically, he wants all of the conflict and related suffering that is besieging his kingdom to stop, and in exchange, the Israelites will stay faithful.
1 God rest you merry, gentlemen,
let nothing you dismay,
remember Christ our Saviour
was born on Christmas day,
to save us all from Satan's pow'r
when we were gone astray;
Refrain:
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
2 From God our heav'nly Father,
a blessed angel came;
and unto certain shepherds
brought tidings of the same:
how that in Bethlehem was born
the son of God by name, [Refrain]
3 "Fear not, then," said the angel,
"let nothing you affright;
this day is born a Savior
of a pure virgin bright,
to free all those who trust in him
from Satan's pow'r and might." [Refrain]
4 The shepherds at those tidings
rejoiced much in mind,
and left their flocks a-feeding,
in tempest, storm, and wind,
and went to Bethlehem straightway,
the Son of God to find. [Refrain]
[The entire Old Testament] ground-plan is the whole scheme of Messianic prophecy, from the germinal revelation in Genesis concerning the suffering, yet triumphant Seed of the Woman to the coming to His Temple of the long-absent “Angel of the Covenant” in Malachi. That hope alone explains the Book, giving meaning and consistency to its story. Was it a chimera, an hallucination? According to the prophecy of Micah, the messianic Shepherd of Israel had to be born in Bethlehem. It is unthinkable that an heir to the throne of David could be born in Bethlehem now, and be also able to prove his legitimacy by documentary evidence. The event must clearly have taken place already, or Micah is a false prophet, a raiser of false hopes, along with the other writers in the Old Testament.
… Max I. Reich (1867-1945)
The day before Christmas, I found myself frantically searching through our small North African town for wrapping paper to wrap Christmas gifts for my workers, friends, and neighbours. I had failed to bring Christmas paper with me from the States. After a fruitless search through five local stationery shops, I felt my frustration level rising. There was no Christmas paper to be found—only birthday, congratulations, and a wide assortment of floral patterns.
How could this be true? Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas here. There were plenty of shops with miniature Christmas trees and Christmas cards. I continued my search through another five shops and finally had to settle for “happy birthday” gift paper. As I sat behind the steering wheel of my car, I tossed my purchase into the seat beside me. How could this town not have one shop with Christmas gift wrap? Just at that moment, I felt the Lord say, This is my Son’s birthday. Why don’t you celebrate Him?
That day as I wrapped gifts, I hoped someone would ask me, “Why the birthday paper?” Then I could share the joyous occasion of Jesus Christ’s birth. I challenged myself to use birthday gift wrap for future Christmas gifts as a means of telling the Christmas story. —L. LEE, NORTHERN AFRICAN AND MIDDLE EASTERN PEOPLES
If you haven’t seen the movie The Usual Suspects but plan to at some point, you might not want to read the rest of this section (SPOILER ALERT).
One of my favourite films of all times is The Usual Suspects, which is a twisting, turning psychological crime thriller that surprised nearly everyone with the final reveal. But if we had really been paying closer attention—that and brushed up on our Turkish before watching it—we might have seen it all coming. Kevin Spacey plays Verbal Kint, a meek, mobility-limited associate of some suspects the police have rounded up for possible involvement in a recent crime. When they get to Verbal, they get a story that seems airtight as an alibi, and just based on the richness of details and his explanation for every single question and accusation they hurl at him, they finally let him go.
Little do they know at the time that he masterminded the whole thing.
Verbal spins a tale about a crime boss named Keyser Söze behind the whole scheme, peppering in details he pulls from words and images around the very office in which they interrogate him. What the cops don’t know is that the name he gives them is a sort of puzzle. It turns out that the name “Söze” comes from the Turkish slang söze boğmak, it refers to casting a blizzard of words so copious and confounding that they leave the audience scratching their heads.
And Keyser, as you can probably guess, is remarkably similar to qaysar, the title for an Ottoman ruler, pronounced much like Kaiser in German, which means king. So in giving up his supposed associate, Verbal is basically confessing that he is the king of obfuscation. It is right there in front of the cops, and yet it is invisible. It isn’t until it’s too late that they realize Verbal (another connection to the root meaning of “Söze”) is, in fact, Keyser Söze. By then he is gone, never to be seen again.
If you’re like me, sometimes you have these moments when something is so obvious and so palpably close, and yet you miss it. It’s enough to make us smack our foreheads flat on a nearby table. Fortunately God knows this about us. It’s not like it hasn’t played out before throughout history.
It’s enough to make me wonder how many of those moments, just today, I’ve missed. Maybe someday I’ll start paying closer attention.
Just because I don’t see or feel you nearby doesn’t mean you’re not there. Help me remember the message of Immanuel, God with us, as Christmas draws close. Amen
The Usual Suspects (film, 1995)
A Scottish farmer did not believe in the Christmas story. The idea that God would become a man was absurd to him.
His wife however was a devout Christian and had raised their children as Christians.
The farmer would sometimes mock her and give her a hard time about her faith.
In particular he could not believe that God would want to come into this world as the little Baby born in Bethlehem 2000 or more years ago.
“It’s nonsense” he said: “Why should God lower himself to become a man like us?”
One Sunday just before Christmas his wife took the children to church, while the farmer relaxed at home in front of a blazing fire.
Suddenly the weather took a turn for the worse, deteriorating into a blinding snow storm, driven by a freezing north wind.
Suddenly he heard a thump on the window, followed by another.
When he went to investigate he found a flock of grey geese disorientated by the storm in his farmyard.
The farmer had compassion on them.
He wanted to help and realised they needed to get out of the storm into the shelter of his barn.
He opened the barn doors and hung up a lamp. BUT THEY WOULD NOT GO IN.
He laid out a trail of bread into the barn
BUT THEY STILL WOULDN’T GO IN.
He tried to shoo them in but to no avail.
Nothing he could do would get them out of the storm into his nice warm barn.
Utterly frustrated, he cried out loud: “Why can’t you fools just follow me in. Can’t you see that I am trying to help you and give you shelter?”
Then he thought: “I wish I could communicate with them. If only I could become like one of them, I could show them the way to go and then I could save them”
He suddenly stopped.
He remembered where his family was and what he had learned in Sunday school
AND AT LAST he understood why God had to become a man.
And he fell down on his knees and thanked God for becoming a man.
And as he looked up – to his amazement he saw the grey geese going into his barn and a white goose was leading them.
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