Immanuel, God with Us
Advent • Sermon • Submitted
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· 8 viewsA biblical theology of God's pursuit of being with us, which climaxes in the incarnation of Christ and finally resolves in the consummation of the Kingdom.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Good morning.
This morning we are not going to be in any one text but are going to take a survey of the Bible focusing on a critical theme connected to Christmas.
We will begin, however, at the end in the book of Revelation. So if you have your Bibles please open them to Revelation 21.
The purpose of beginning in the book of Revelation is to answer the question—what is the whole Bible about?
Like many good books there are aspects of the story, details which are often missed on the first read through because—as is the nature of narratives—you didn’t know where the story was going till you finished it.
And so it is on your second read through that you notice the Pride and Prejudice to which the title of Austen’s famous novel refers to is not that of Darcy, but Elizabeth.
As on the second read that you catch the name Ebenezer is not simply a dusty and cranky moniker that Dickens thought fit well in front of Scrooge but a telegraph of the revelation the hard money lender will have by tales end.
So too, I hope that this morning, beginning at the end of the Bible’s story might yield more depth to our celebration of the birth of Jesus. So let’s pray and see what God has for us this morning.
Prayer
Prayer
Father in Heaven,
We have gathered here this morning, twenty days into advent, twenty days into waiting for the celebration. Many have prepared their homes. Many have arranged gifts and cards. Many await eagerly for the coming December twenty-fifth. Father, open the eyes of our hearts as we explore this story this morning. As we unpack the extravagant beauty of the incarnation. I pray that we might understand the love which you showed and that we celebrate to a new degree, at a new level. That we might look on manger scenes, that we might hear the old songs of Christmas, that we might experience this Christmas all afresh—with a focus on the gift you gave in your Son our savior—Christ Jesus.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be honoring in your sight this morning.
Amen.
Starting with the End of the Story
Starting with the End of the Story
English Standard Version Chapter 21
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
This is where the story ends. The culmination and consummation of all that the Bible has been building too is this. Heaven meet Earth, creation made new.
In a year like this, and yes I mean a year of pandemic, political term-oil, civil unrest. But I don’t just mean those things. I mean “in a year like this” in which I have often seen you suffer and struggle.
Physical pain and even paralysis has afflicted some of you.
Financial hardship and occupational uncertainty has plagued some of your 2020s.
Relational safety and security that halves our sorrows and doubles our joys have been stressed and strained for many of you. The victories of this fraught year may have passed with little to none of the deserved fanfare. The shoulders to cry on and the arms to uplift may have been absent.
Major existential questions have challenged many of you this year.
As if those things were not enough, some of you fled your homes for fear of a raging fire, uncertain about what you would return to.
So when I say, “In a year like this,” a year that has been nothing short of apocalyptic for our world and our nation, I want to acknowledge this also for many of us as individuals and family units.
In a year like this we can read these beautiful words and presume the emphasis is on what is taken away...
… every tear.
… mourning and crying.
… pain.
… death itself.
We all long for that day, when it would be true that such things are undone and the world is made new. But the emphasis of this text is not on what is absent in Heaven, but what is present.
Look with me at verse 3:
English Standard Version Chapter 21
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
This is the hope of mankind. The presence of God with us.
We do a disservice to ourselves when our thoughts of Heaven alight only on questions of golden streets, on the nature and manner of our heavenly bodies, and whether or not we will see our departed loved ones.
The true treasure of Heaven is that, there at the end of history, we will dwell with our God.
This would not be surprising to us, however, if we had read the Bible’s story closely.
So much of the text is given to God’s resolute pursuit of humanity.
So this morning, having seen the end of the story I want us to build to the climatic crescendo, the apex peak of the Bible’s description of God’s pursuit.
So this morning we are going to rehearse the narrative of our theological history and see the the divine effort in love to make Revelation 21:3 a reality.
Santa Cruz Baptist Church: Let us look at the perseverance necessary to make the dwelling place of God with mankind, let’s listen again to this story we may have heard many times.
Telling the Story
Telling the Story
Such a long story in such a short period of time can be hard to track with. So let me give some mile markers so that we don’t get lost in the grand-narrative.
I want us to see:
God moves to a Covenantal Creation of Us
We Move East Away from Him
Notwithstanding God Pursues Us in Greater Covenant Fidelity
That’s our outline. Here we go.
God Moves to a Covenantal Creation (Genesis 1-2)
God Moves to a Covenantal Creation (Genesis 1-2)
In the beginning God...
That is how the story starts. No argument, no qualification, no backstory.
Much like how Jesus just sort of appears at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, so the Bible presumes the existence and presence of God.
There follows no discussion of metaphysics or theological dialogue about the nature of God.
Rather God just speaks and that which was not, now is.
There is a rhythm and beat.
And God said…
… and there was…
… and God saw that it was good…
… Morning and Evening, end of Day…
And God said…
… and there was…
… and God saw that it was good…
… Morning and Evening, end of Day…
Like all good poets, Moses by divine inspiration, draws our attention to one particular act of creation by setting it apart from all the others.
The creation of mankind crafted God’s image.
Genesis 2 gives us more detail and understanding. Man is not merely spoken into being. God gets his hands dirty. Like a potter with clay, so God forms Adam.
And he puts him in a place where his presence is felt palpably.
As one Genesis expert points out:
“ ‘The presence of God was key to the garden and was understood by author and audience as a given from the ancient worldview’… The Garden of Eden is better understood as a temple-garden, in which the Lord would dwell among his people.”
- Walton, John as quoted in Osborne’s Divine Blessing
But when the Scriptures speak about God’s presence they don’t simply mean geographic proximity. The mean relational intensity. That is to say if God is present with people, God is in a meaningful relationship with them.
It is actually in description of the Fall in Genesis 3 that we get a beautifully tragic image for such relational closeness. Genesis 3:8 says,
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
The Creator of the Universe is pictured here taking a stroll in the Garden and the text seems to imply that this was a regular activity and there was an expectation that God would be joined by his image bearers on this outing.
We’ll get to the Fall in a moment but note the sort of intimacy of a walk in a garden in the cool of the day.
This is why one of the most prominent themes of the Bible is the Covenant.
A Covenant is an intensely relational agreement that stipulates the terms of the relationship between two parties and establishes a foundation for relational flourishing.
There is so much that could and should be said about the content of Genesis 1 and 2, but to keep our story moving we will simply note that God establishes all that is necessary for humanity to dwell in increasing enjoyment of his presence.
They want for nothing.
They experience life and life to the full.
But we know the story does not stay, nor end there. We move east.
We Moved East (Genesis 3-11)
We Moved East (Genesis 3-11)
After the tragedy of the Fall in Genesis 3, we read…
He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
The words “at the east of the garden” may seem innocuous enough, but it is not the first, nor the last time we have been given east as an important directional marker.
Throughout the scriptures the movement East often symbolizes movement away from God
This is not a comment about various world cultures, but a theological interpretation of historical events.
Consider that Genesis 2 told us
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
An odd statement considering east is a relative marker. East is only directionally helpful if I have another marker—when you are told something is east the natural question is east of what?
We get the answer to that question as we see the escalation of sin after the Fall.
After the jealous rage of Cain leads him to kill his brother we are told…
Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
East is associated here with moving away from God.
Similarly, in Genesis 11, as the human population increases we find that these people from the east—implication is that these are the descendants of Cain—desire to reject the command of God to fill the earth and make God’s name great and instead decided to gather together in order to make their name great by ascending to God’s realm.
East is here associated with rejecting God and God’s desire.
Given these texts we might draw the conclusion that God placed Adam in an eastern garden symbolizing that though things were good, there was room from growth. Specifically there was room to advance deeper into the presence of God as humanity fulfilled the command to be…
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Instead in our rebellion we moved east, away from God. In many ways the biblical story could be told through the movement of people to the east.
From Cain to Babel to the Exile into Babylonian Captivity.
One biblical scholar described the situation in Israel saying,
“Like Solomon and many kings after him, the people worshiped at the high places, made sacrifices to other gods, practices divination, and worshiped the idols of the nations. In fact, the record of Israel’s history from Joshua to 2 Kings reveals the downward spiral of the nation toward their removal from the land.”
- Osborne, Divine Blessing, 92
God Moves to Covenantal Pursuit
God Moves to Covenantal Pursuit
God calls out to Abram out of Haran to lead him to the land of Canaan…
A movement from East to West mind you.
… and God establishes a covenant with him.
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Though not explicitly stated, we have to see this as an act by which God seeks to reestablish his presence among his chosen people.
Abram is to metaphorically move toward God’s presence in the act of faith of leaving his home. Obedience to this call will result in the establishment of God’s people in God’s place where they will experience his presence.
As one commentator noted,
God’s promise is not just a place for Abram to tie up his camels!
- Osborne, Divine Blessing
What we we see in this covenant is God’s relational pursuit of Abram in order to bless him, his descendents, and in fact all the peoples of the earth.
We must state clearly that there can be no Biblical understanding of “God’s blessing” apart from being in the presence of God.
Consider how the promise to Abram is reiterated to his son Isaac in…
Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
The promise of presence becomes more explicit.
The story of the Israelites is saturated with this. As the narrative progresses and God’s people move from a small familial tribe to an enslaved nation we read:
During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.
The term “knew” here is evocative of the deep relational and experiential knowing which the Old Testament often uses of sexual intimacy within the marital union.
Then, God’s presence manifests in a burning bush increasing the relational intensity by revealing the proper name of God—Yahweh.
And he commissions Moses to liberate his people declaring in…
Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’ ”
After the accomplishment of the liberation, God renews his covenant again telling the people…
‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.
and
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
and in his instructions concerning the construction of the tabernacle, he explains its purpose saying:
And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.
Santa Cruz Baptist Church: Do you hear the relational nature of those texts? Do you hear the desirous nature of God in those texts to establish relational closeness.
God was relationally pursuing his people even in the midst of their eastward march away from him.
God Moves to Greater Covenant Fidelity
God Moves to Greater Covenant Fidelity
Even in the captivity of God’s people, as it starts to come to an end, the prophet Malachi spoke about how God would ultimately move to unite himself to his people:
“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
In the mystery of all mysteries a prophet of God declares to God’s exiled people that God will come to them again, personally. They will again experience the presence of God.
Not—this time through some third party go between—but that he would himself come. That he would come to his temple.
But how is it that the God of the universe—who created man for himself, who pursued man in covenant, forgave time and again man’s sin. How could he once and for all establish a way to dwell with his people?
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.
Describing what is happening here, to barrow a phrase from pastor and theologian Sam Storms, requires a parade of paradoxes:
The Word became flesh
God became human
The invisible became visible
The untouchable became touchable
The eternal entered the temporal
The transcendent descended
The unlimited became limited
The unbreakable became a fragile baby
Essential spirit became matter
The supremely independent being became dependent on a teenage mother
The almighty became weak and vulnerable
The exalted endured infantile indignities
The glorious one entered obscurity
The heir of Heaven’s joy entered the grief of broken and sinful humanity
The throne room of God was traded for a cold cave stable
The songs of angels swapped for the snorts and grunts of livestock
The ruler of all submitted to being ruled by human parents
You get the point.
The solution to the eastward movement of man away from the presence of God is the cosmic movement of God’s Son coming from Heaven to earth to bring God’s presence to us.
Which, by the way is foreshadowed in the story of God’s unimaginable providence to draw mysterious figures from the East to the humble manger in which Christ was born:
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
These are the first worshippers of Jesus by Matthew’s account. They are drawn by God’s providence from the east.
Jesus himself would embody this three decades later when, as Mark 11 records, Jesus would enter Jerusalem from Bethany and the Mount of Olives
—as trajectory of East to West—
And go directly to the temple in fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy.
And as Jesus would declare:
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
Have you ever considered the oddity of this verse.
Why would it be better that Jesus go away? How could that be better to not have Jesus with us?
It is better because the coming of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate reversal of the Eastward movement of Humanity. God has done more than come and retrieve us from our captivity to sin, our exile from his presence. He has filled us with his Spirit.
Consider how theologian Wayne Grudem defines the Work of the Holy Spirit:
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine Explanation and Scriptural Basis
We may define the work of the Holy Spirit as follows: The work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the active presence of God in the world, and especially in the church.
Three Reflections for Christmas
Three Reflections for Christmas
Having, I hope led us on a faithful journey through the scriptures theme of Eastern movement and Western rescue—again, not about cultures, just a theological analysis of historical events.
I want to close. with three quick reflections on things that are often misunderstood and occasionally taught flat out wrong.
First, the True Meaning of Heaven
First, the True Meaning of Heaven
Heaven is not primarily a party for us. It is not primarily about reuniting with dead loved ones. It is not about harps and clouds. It is not about the removal of restrictions and limitations. Now that doesn’t mean those things aren’t true, some are, but they pale in consideration of the true meaning of Heaven.
Getting back to where we started, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He created us to walk with him.
He pursued us in covenant that we might turn to him.
He spoke to us that we might hear him.
He saved us that we might once again live with him.
He put his Holy Spirit in us that we might be sealed for him.
The prize of Heaven is God.
Let me say it this way. If you would gladly take all the trappings that our world often projects into Heaven, even if God wasn’t there, then you are misunderstanding Heaven and maybe the Faith itself.
The party of Heaven is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. So a joyous and glad party which we are involved, but which Jesus is the one being celebrated.
Second, the True Meaning of Christmas
Second, the True Meaning of Christmas
When we celebrate Christmas we celebrate God’s work, God’s unfathomable and surprising work, to bring us to him. To make Revelation 21:3 a reality.
It is so easy to get lost in the shopping, the decorating, the cooking, and all the rest.
It is so easy to settle for the widow dressing of the nativity scenes and to miss the reality that this birth we celebrate is not simply a quaint story or wholesome fable.
This is the Christian D-Day. The plan from eternity past to win his people. That God would dwell in the flesh of man so that man in renewed flesh might dwell with God.
Third, the True Meaning of Blessing
Third, the True Meaning of Blessing
When I taught New Testament I would challenge my students to peruse images from social media that had been tagged with the hashtag “#blessed.”
Let me give the disclaimer that the feed was curated by the schools content filter…
Which was itself a helpful reminder that our world and superficial-cultural Christianity does not understand the term “blessed” biblically.
To be blessed—according to the overwhelming consensus of scripture—is to be in God’s presence. They are ultimately synonymous.
God wants to bless you, which means he wants to draw you closer to him. Invite you further up and further in to a relationship with him. To delight in him, find your peace in him, see your value in him, define your identity through him.
In my experience and in my reading of history that is most likely going to happen by bringing about the sorts of circumstances which would run exactly contrary to being #blessed by our world’s standards.
Prayer
Prayer
With these things in mind, as I prepared this sermon, I came across a prayer by from a 17th century pastor. I have modified that prayer a bit for us this morning. Would you pray with me.
Lord,
Only misery would await us if our hopes and joys resided finally in this world and the material and circumstantial. Why? Because we are ultimately hopeless without Christ's righteousness which opens up to us a dwelling place in your presence.
We can learn to be happy with or without worldly enjoyments, but all things in the world cannot make us happy without you. So however you treat me in this world, whatever you deny us in this life, Lord, deny us not yourself.
We can learn from Job and Lazarus, we can be taught by the disciples, as well by Paul and Silas—how to be comfortable in difficulty, how to live abundantly in lack, but all the riches, palaces, or honors on earth will leave us miserable if we are without you.
Without you we would be a wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked no matter our worldly possessions.
So, Father, we pray this morning for ourselves and our brothers and sisters in Christ. Grateful of what you have done to call us into your presence. Grateful for the abundance you have shown us. Grateful for the works you have been doing in us.
Teach us joy, peace, and love through abundance in you. Teach us to desire your kingdom as we abide with you in Christ.
Amen.