The Fourth Sunday of Advent

In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God. Amen.

Presence.

Not presents, though I know Christmas is close.

Presence is a finicky thing to experience. At least, it is for me.

Often I am catapulting over a vast list of to-do items, planning, estimating. So much future-oriented frenzied activity. Sometimes, I may dwell in the past, ruminating on things already done.

But it is a rarity for me to simply be with the activity happening right here, right now, in the present moment.

In the Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, the demon Screwtape loathingly writes of the present moment to his nephew Wormwood, a demon in training.

He writes, “For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which [God] has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. [God] would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with [God]) or with the Present — either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, [Godself], or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.”

Screwtape then goes on to write about how it is best to keep humans thinking in the future, or dwelling on the past. The present moment, it seems, is something which the devil seeks to keep away from us. And it is the present moment where we most frequently encounter God.

Advent is, ideally, a time to be present. A time to be with God.

And in Advent, we are reminded that God is with us, too.

Immanuel. God with us.

The Prophet Isaiah proclaims this name today. The Apostle Matthew, citing the Prophet, associates Immanuel, God with us, directly with Jesus.

But what does it mean for God to be with us? For Christ to be Immanuel?

First, this name reminds us that God’s presence is eternal - within the relationality of the Trinity itself - and temporal, since the beginning of time in creation. That is, God has been inbreaking into humanity since the very beginning. God has been with humans since… forever.

Today’s Gospel pericope occurs just after a genealogy of Jesus, which connects the lineage of Christ back to David and Abraham.

Immediately following the genealogy of Jesus, the Gospel opens with the words, “Now the birth of Jesus came about…” or in Greek, “Tou de Iesou Christou he genesis.” Matthew’s use of the word genesis at the beginning of the life of Christ immediately connects the birth narrative to the first book of the Bible, which in the Greek translation was Genesis. The Beginning. The Origin.

This may seem to some like a stretch. But Matthew deliberately structures the Gospel into 5 sections, intentionally mirroring the 5 books of the Pentateuch, the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We may need to do a forum on this, as it’s very fascinating - but here, the connection stands:

Matthew deliberately is connecting the beginning of the Cosmos in Genesis and the birth of Jesus Christ.

In verses 20-21, the birth announcement is made to Joseph in a dream by an angel. A number of scholars understand this announcement as parallel to the announcements to Hagar in Genesis 16:7-12, to Abraham in Gen 17:19, to Samson’s mother in Judges 13:3-5, and to Ahaz in, of course Isaiah 7:14 - our Old Testament text for today.

Again we see a connection that God with us, Immanuel, is God having been with us since the beginning.

And this means that God has been with you - in every single aspect of your life - since you were born, since your genesis. This means that God has been with you through every joy and pain and sorry and triumph.

A first meaning of Immanuel, then, is to proclaim that God has been, is, and always will be with us.

Immanuel also has a very literal component as well. That God is with us as one of us. God takes on the nature, mortality, frailty, and biology of humanity.

The transcendent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God becomes a human being in the form of Jesus Christ, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God, incarnate as a human, is subject to all of the human realities which we ourselves experience. All of them. (Except, of course, sin).

To claim that God would incarnate as a human - as a baby! - was a blasphemous statement to the peoples back then - and continues to be blasphemous to many traditions today.

And yet it is what we proclaim! It is what we believe and it is what we know. God is with us as one of us.

Immanuel.

The last point I’ll make about God with us comes from the the very name of Jesus. Jesus, which is Greek for Joshua, which is English for Yeshua, which is Hebrew for “God saves!”

We are drawn back, too, to the historical figure Joshua, who leads God’s people into the promised land (p. 78 of systematic theology). We see in the name a connection to the past, present, and future - that Jesus leads us into the eternal promised land.

God with us. God saves us.

The scriptures remind us today, too, that Jesus is to be named as such because he “will save his people from their sins.”

Sin is that which breaks, perturbs, disrupts relationships - first and foremost between us and God. Sin is what leads humanity into the shadowy wastes of death and despair.

And it is Jesus, God with us, who redeems us. Redemption is, functionally, the act by which one is reclaimed. It is Jesus who reclaims us from evil, who redeems us, who saves us from sin and brings us into eternal life.

To be redeemed is to experience the reality of Immanuel, God with us. This is the power of the holy name of Jesus which we so often utter without another thought - but to proclaim the very name of Jesus is to proclaim to the profound and shocking reality that God saves us because God is with us as one of us.

Immanuel.

God with us.

The fourth and final Sunday of Advent invites us to contemplate the profound proximity that we have with our God.

We prepare for the incarnation of Christ, and the second coming of Christ, knowing that God is with us, even when we may find it difficult to be with God.

This means, my friends, that in every act we do in the name of Christ, we do alongside Immanuel, God with us, God who saves us.

When we praise and sing the name of Jesus, God is with us.

When we cry over the hardships and sufferings of the world at this time, God is with us in the tears we cry, in the frustration and the lament we bear as a solemn offering to the God of the cosmos who is with us.

As one of us.

Inbreaking continuously into our lives.

On this final Sunday of Advent, may it be a profound invitation to welcome the incarnate God in but a few days ever more fully into our hearts and lives. To be shaped by the divine hands which are with us.

And may we rejoice, and say, Lord come quickly, Jesus, who saves us.

Immanuel.

Who is God with us.

Amen.