FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A

December 18, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N.J.

 

Isaiah 7:10-17

Psalm 24:1-7

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-25

 

Over the years I’ve noticed that Episcopal parishes, cathedrals, chapels, seminaries, and other institutions often have their own favorite hymns, which sometimes become almost their theme songs. And I’m told that one of the favorite hymns here at Christ Church, which we sang Friday evening at Lessons and Carols, is “God himself is with us.” It’s an excellent hymn, written by the early eighteenth-century German preacher Gerhard Tersteegen, and set to the Swedish melody Tysk. 

 

The phrase “God himself is with us” evokes the Hebrew prophecy of Emmanuel, “God with us,” which we encounter in both our Old Testament and Gospel readings for this Fourth Sunday of Advent.

 

But we need to be careful. The claim that “God is with us” is all too easily subject to abuse. Down through the centuries, armies have set out on wars of conquest proclaiming that “God is on our side.” To this day, so many sincere believers of various religions deceive themselves into thinking that they’re doing God’s work when they persecute, enslave, and put to death those who believe differently.

 

So, before we claim that “God is with us,” we need to examine carefully whether we’re using those words to justify self-serving actions or attitudes. But when we examine the biblical texts, we discover that the sign Emmanuel, “God with us,” is given for a very different purpose indeed.

 

Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah is set in the year 734 BC. The young king Ahaz has just inherited the throne of the southern kingdom of Judah in the midst of a grave crisis. The kings of both Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel have invaded Judah with the goal of overthrowing Ahaz and replacing him with a puppet king. Ahaz is in a desperate predicament, as the invading forces vastly outnumber his own.

 

Going out to inspect Jerusalem’s water supply—which is critical to the city’s ability to withstand a siege—Ahaz encounters the prophet Isaiah, who tells him not to worry about the city’s defenses but to place his trust in God. And so, our reading begins with the prophet telling the king: “Ask a sign of the Lord your God.” In other words, “If you don’t believe me, then God will confirm what I’m saying by any sign you choose.”

 

Ahaz protests that he will not put the Lord to the test. “Very well, then,” Isaiah replies, “if you won’t ask for a sign, the Lord himself will give you a sign: Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” And, before the child grows old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong, “the land before whose two kings you are in dread will lie deserted.” In other words, the invasion will simply melt away.

 

The saying as we have it in Isaiah raises more questions than it answers. Contrary to what we might expect, the young woman in the prophecy is most likely someone alive at that time, known to both Ahaz and Isaiah. So, when this young woman conceives and bears a son, Ahaz will have God’s sign confirming Isaiah’s word that he has nothing to fear from the forces threatening his kingdom.

 

The prophecy does in fact come true. Within a few years, the two kings threatening Judah are themselves conquered and absorbed by the Assyrian Empire. And it’s just possible that the sign of Emmanuel foretells the birth of Ahaz’s son Hezekiah, assuring the continuation of the dynasty of King David’s descendants on the throne of Judah. And unlike Ahaz, a wicked king known for his disobedience to God’s laws, Hezekiah will grow up to be a good and righteous king.

 

We see, then, the difference between self-serving misuse of the claim that “God is with us,” and its true biblical use. For here the prophecy is given to a king at his wits’ end, facing almost certain defeat and death at the hands of his enemies. More broadly, the sign of Emmanuel comes not to the powerful but to the weak and vulnerable: those who must place their trust in God because they dare not trust in their own strength.

 

But, as we know, the prophecy doesn’t end there. More than seven centuries later, when the Evangelist Matthew sits down to write the story of our Lord’s birth, he discerns the true fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. After all, whatever prophecies might have signified in their own time and in their own setting, sometimes God gives them deeper meanings that become clear only centuries later.

 

Just as Isaiah told Ahaz not to fear the forces invading his realm, so the angel tells Joseph not to fear to take Mary as his wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit: a son, to be named Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. In this way, Joseph receives the grace and strength to continue in what Saint Paul calls, in today’s Epistle, “the obedience of faith.” So, when Joseph arises from his sleep he does as the angel has commanded him.

 

But there’s another twist to the prophecy’s history. When the Jewish scholars of Alexandria in Egypt produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, they used the Greek word for “virgin” to translate the Hebrew word for “young woman” in Isaiah’s prophecy. And, providentially, it’s this Greek version of the Old Testament that Matthew quotes when he inserts his editorial comment affirming Christ’s virginal conception and birth: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel’ (which means, God with us).” 

 

Here again, we see the prophecy’s supreme fulfillment not in strength but in weakness: for what’s more helpless, dependent, and defenseless than a newborn baby? The sign of Emmanuel reassures us that at those moments in our lives when we feel most vulnerable and powerless—when we lose our job, when we receive news of a loved one’s death, when the doctor diagnoses a life-threatening illness—then, more than ever, God himself is with us. 

 

In the Incarnation, out of his great love for us, the most high God empties himself of his power and glory to share the frailty of our human condition so that we might know him as Emmanuel, God with us. Again, at precisely those times when we feel overwhelmed by circumstances beyond our control, he gives us the grace and strength to continue like Joseph in “the obedience of faith” knowing that he’ll see us through whatever challenges we may have to face in this life.

 

This is the God for whose coming we’ve been waiting and preparing this Advent, and whose birth we shall celebrate in a week’s time at Christmas. If we’re only ready and willing to receive him, he will come abide within us, so that we may know his deep indwelling presence in our lives.