Sermon Video: Immanuel, "God with us" - Matthew 1:22-23

The entrance of the Christ child into God's redemptive story is an amazing true story. The Son of God, the rightful king, born in a humble setting. Jesus' story begins, purposefully, with humility. And yet, within the humble setting lies an awesome truth, the child of the Virgin is the very Son of God, literally he is Immanuel, "God with us". Why? Simple, only God himself could save us. The entrance into the human story by God is incredible, but God is just getting warmed up, stay tuned until Easter to see how God temporarily left the stage, only to return in triumph. Christmas is sublime, but Easter is a sequel that surpasses it.

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Sermon Video: The Messiah's Nature - Philippians 2:6-8

Our literature and pop-culture extensively utilize "Christ figures"; heroes from humble beginnings who are more than they seem to be on the surface, and who through self-sacrifice manage to save the day.  {Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Superman, to name a few}.  But what of the original?  What exactly is the nature of the God-Man, whom Luke called Emmanuel, 'God with us'?  While the Gospel writers and other NT authors made it abundantly clear that they saw Jesus as both God and Man, it took the Early Church a while to sort out exactly how to explain that unique combination.  After Arius' false venture into Subordinationism (the Son as the highest created being, i.e. modern-day Jehovah's Witness doctrine), which the Church soundly rejected at the Council of Nicaea (325), where they also rejected attempts to deny the full humanity of Jesus, the Church still needed to refine their explanation, eventually arriving at the language of the Council of Chalcedon (451), "consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood."  The Apostle Paul illuminated this mystery when he wrote in Philippians about the nature of Jesus, declaring Jesus to be "very nature God", while at the same time taking on the role of a humble and obedient servant "being made in human likeness."  It is an enduring, and incredible, mystery.  God the Son, willing to take upon his divinity, humanity, in order to fulfill the role of the Messiah and save humanity; no wonder we celebrate Christmas two millennia later.

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Sermon Video: From Darkness to Light - Isaiah 9:2

In a world mired in moral and spiritual darkness, with humanity hopeless to solve the fundamental problem of our own fallen nature, it was up to God to intervene and change the trajectory of his creation.  And so God came, the Word of God made flesh, the Son of God in human form, to bring light to those living in darkness, truth to those who know only falsehood, and life to those who were spiritually dead.
The light of Christ was the beginning, from there the grace of God has spread throughout the earth as the Gospel's message of repentance, reconciliation, and restoration has transformed lives generation after generation.  We who believe today have inherited the light that first spread with the apostles, we now carry that light as ambassadors of God, bringing to news peoples and a new generation.  May we all shine brightly as we reflect the glorious light of the Christ.

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Sermon Video: The Zeal that brought Emmanuel to Earth - Isaiah 9:7b

The most important events in human history invariably later involve those asking two questions: How did it happen?  Why did it happen?  For the most singular and momentous event in human history, the advent of the Christ child, the question of how was answered by the angel Gabriel, although it remains shrouded in mystery.  The question of why, however, has been clearly answered by Scripture, we need only ponder the character of God as we examine it.
The zeal of the LORD brought the Emmanuel, God in the flesh, to earth.  Why zeal?  Zeal is the emotion that is connected to both love (ardor) and anger (envy, jealousy) relating to the relationships between people and between God and people.  In this case, the zeal of God as our Heavenly Father would not allow God to sit idly by as humanity self-destructed in its rebellion against God.  The love of God, propelled by zeal, moved God to act in accordance with his holiness, thus the advent of the Son of God, sent to be a sacrifice for sin, sent to redeem humanity from darkness.

As we celebrate Christmas, marveling at the wondrous deeds of love which God has wrought, let us remember that zeal motivated God, for his is our God, and we are his people.

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God reveals his secret wisdom: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10a

Every year a new book purports to reveal the secret things hidden from the public by the Church.  In the end, these books merely reveal things which have been known for centuries, not mysteries at all, nor any grand conspiracy, but simply the writings of heretics forgotten over the centuries.  The apostle Paul does reveal, however, that God kept an important secret from humanity, for thousands of years.  The secret wisdom of God was at last revealed, although it had been hinted at previously in the form of prophecies, to be the coming of the Son of God to dwell among men as Immanuel.  After the coming of the Christ, the people of God were commanded to share this news throughout the earth.

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Sermon Video: A baby whose origins are from of old - Micah 5:2

The prophet Micah predicted that the future king in the line of David would be "from of old"; yet how could this be?  How could a future king be from the past?  The mystery of this prophecy was solved at Bethlehem when Jesus Christ, the God-Man, became flesh and he who had created the world entered into time.

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The Creator among Creation: Immanuel

Each year we celebrate Christmas in commemoration of the arrival of the promised Messiah at the village of Bethlehem in Judea.  Few things are commemorated even 100 years after they occur, as the generations that lived through them fade away, so does the living memory and thus the poignancy of memory.  "Remember the Maine" once evoked anger among Americans, much the same way that "Remember the Alamo" reverberated with a previous generation, and "Remember Pearl Harbor" would with a later generation.  Yet these now are a part of history to us, much the same way that "Remember 9/11" will be 100 years from now.  History moves on, the victories and defeats of the past, the joys and fears, don't linger much beyond those who lived through them.

The arrival of the Messiah is different.  It was not simply an event for the 1st Century, nor was it simply an event for the Jewish people.  It was an event for all of humanity, and for all of time.  How could it be?  How could the birth of a child, one among billions that have ever been born, be so noteworthy as to be relevant to us today two thousand years later?

Simply put, the child was not just a child.  He was indeed a human child, but he was also far more.  The term in Hebrew is transliterated into English as Immanuel.  As Hebrew names typically do, the name has a meaning: "God with us".  God had been "with" the descendants of Abraham for over two thousand years, had given them the Law, had sent angels and prophets to them to show them the way, and had even appeared in fire and cloud in the days of Moses.  How much more "with" his people could he get?  It turns out, a lot more.  The arrival of the Messiah was far more than that of just another prophet, more even than an angel who had stood in the presence of Almighty God.  The child of Bethlehem was the Son of Man, but he was also the Son of God.  The very essence of God, God himself, in the flesh, here on Earth.  

History was never the same after that day, a day that separated everything that came before from everything that was to follow.  God With Us.  A change worth celebrating, year after year, down through the ages.

Sermon Video: Immanuel, "God with us" - Matthew 1:22-25

"God is with us", what does this mean?  When Isaiah declared that the virgin's child would be named Immanuel, it seemed most likely that God would be with his people in Spirit.  After all, God had gone to great lengths to convince his Covenant people that he was the only true God, that they need seek no other.  God could be "with" his people wherever they were.  And yet, more was needed, the Covenant people were unable to lift themselves up to the lofty standard of the Law of Moses, they needed help.  As Matthew recounts the story of Jesus, the term Immanuel takes on a whole new meaning.  Because Mary's conception was an act of the Holy Spirit, God himself would be entering into his creation in new way unlike anything that had happened before.  The God of the universe, not bound by time or space, would take upon himself human flesh and live as we do, bound by the laws that he himself had helped his father craft.  Immanuel would go from being a symbol of God's relationship with his people to being a literal truth; God would indeed be "with us" when the Christ was born.
How would this advent of Creator into his creation change our world?  One thing became crystal clear, if God is willing to condescend so much to save us, his love for us cannot be doubted.  Likewise, if God found it necessary to go to such an end to save humanity, our hope of ever fixing ourselves must have been false all along.  God came down to earth at Bethlehem because there was no other way, Immanuel was our only hope.
After his dream ends, Joseph proceeds to obey the word of God by bringing Mary home as his wife.  The Son of God will now have an adoptive father to raise him on behalf of his heavenly Father. 

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Sermon Video - The Angel's Message, Luke 1:26-38

As the Christmas story continues, Gabriel goes to the small backwoods village of Nazareth to seek out a descendant of David, a carpenter named Joseph.  When he arrives, Gabriel speaks to Joseph's fiance, Mary, instead.  The message he has for her is unlike any other; a child is to be born, before Mary has union with her future husband.  Mary is rightly confused about how this could be possible until Gabriel explains that the child will be called the Son of God; the Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and God will "overshadow" her.  The end result: Emmanuel, God with us.  Mary's response to this shocking news is a credit to her character, "I am the Lord's servant".

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