Immanuel, "God with us"

When we celebrate the birth of the Christ child each Christmas do we actually understand how unprecedented and unimagined this birth was? I’m not talking about the miracle of the Virgin Birth or the announcement of the birth by a choir of angels and a bright star; no, the surprise I’m talking about is the purpose of the incarnation itself. Prior to the birth of Christ, you wouldn’t have been able to find any prophets or philosophers teaching anything about either God becoming a man, or God doing the necessary work to save mankind himself. Most of the world’s religions focus on the effort necessary (through good works, self-sacrifice, or even jihad) for mankind to elevate himself to a status of worthiness before God, or even to God-like status. The point is though, that man’s efforts are the focus. The Christ child changes all of that. Simply take note of the two names given to this child in Matthew 1:23-25. The first, Immanuel, is taken from Isaiah 7:14 and means “God with us”. The second, Jesus, means “The LORD saves” When taken together, we can see that God’s plan for the Christ would be that God himself would come among us and save us by his own hand. This may seem second nature to us after two thousand years of Church history, but to the 1st Century it was nothing short of incredible. Not only is the notion of mankind saving himself dispelled by it, but so to the notion that God is too lofty or unconcerned to do what needed to be done himself.
So, this Christmas as you celebrate the 2012th Anniversary of Christ’s birth (he was born in 6 B.C., the calendar adjusters were slightly off), take some time to reflect on what the nature of the God that we worship. Not remote, not distant, but intimately involved in the world he created, unwilling to allow the desperate plight of mankind to continue, and willing to give everything he had to save us. That is why he sent his son, Jesus, also called Immanuel.