Immanuel

Today, we begin an exploration of the names of Jesus, and we begin with the promise of his coming.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will name Him Immanuel. – Isaiah 7:14

If you’ve grown up in church, that’s a familiar verse. Comforting. I think of advent candles and Christmas carols. The  Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

But  Yahweh gave Isaiah King Ahaz the prophecy  in the middle of a military crisis that could mean Judah’s annihilation. More than 700 years before Jesus’s birth. Why? What did King Ahaz take away from it?

Let’s break this down.

“The Lord Himself will give a sign . . .”

What’s a sign, and why did the Lord give it?

What – Signs are prophecies or unexpected occurrences. We’ll look at the circumstances surrounding this one in the next post.

Why – The Lord gives signs to confirm a promise, to strengthen our faith, and to draw us closer to Him.

Immanuel means “God with us.” In the spirit of all Monday morning quarterbacks, we can say, “Oh, that sign was a promise of Jesus’s birth. Everyone knows that!” But what would it have meant to Ahaz, King of Judah? He was staring down the barrel of a coordinated attack from both the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Aram. But God had good news for Ahaz, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah. Israel and Aram would fail. And not only that, the Lord assured Ahaz that 65 years later, Israel would no longer be a people.

Then he gave the sign of Immanuel, God with us, as confirmation. What’s the connection? God can’t be with us if there’s no us to be with. Judah would survive for God to be with them.

Now King Ahaz didn’t know any specifics. He couldn’t have predicted it would mean God coming to earth as a helpless baby, born in humble circumstances, born to die in order to give us eternal life. From that sign alone, he couldn’t have guessed that, as we read in 1 Corinthians 15, Christ would die for our sins, be buried, and then be raised on the third day. But he would find hope in the promise of God with us.

Isn’t that the way with God’s promises? We can’t quite wrap our brains around how he’s going to fulfill them, but we know we’ll be blown away when he does.

but just as it is written:

“THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD,

AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HUMAN HEART,

ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.” – 1 Corinthians 2:9

By the way, that’s a reference to Isaiah, too.

For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,

Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,

Who acts in behalf of one who waits for Him. – Isaiah 64:4

I don’t know about you, but Isaiah is high on my list of “People whose brains I want to pick” once I get to heaven.

The next time you’re worried about the future, breathe and remember, “Immanuel, God with us.”

This year-long blog series is based on Ann Spangler’s Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks.