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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Do you believe that God is absent from you or present with you? If you believe that God is present with you, do you believe that God is present with you to judge you or to save you? To be sure, we all see or experience things that we might mistake as evidence that God is absent from us (confer Nafzger, CPR 33:1, pp.26-27, 28). For example, Russian forces continue firing missiles across Ukraine, leaving people there without power and water for the upcoming winter weather. On this continent, we see falling market‑values, rising prices, and have insufficient funds in our country, congregation, and maybe also homes. Conflict between family members may threaten to disrupt upcoming holiday celebrations. And, loved ones’ and our own health continues to decline. Even if we believe that God is present with us, we might believe that God is present with us to judge us and not to save us. Anything that happens to us that we think of as bad can be mistaken as evidence of God’s judging or condemning us. And, God certainly could condemn us, for, considering today’s Gospel Reading, we realize that “In Jesus, God is present to judge or to save us”.
In today’s Gospel Reading, the Divinely‑inspired evangelist St. Matthew describes the birth—or we might say, “genesis” (confer Matthew 1:1)—of Jesus as taking place in order to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet some eight centuries earlier, as we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Isaiah 7:10-17), about the virgin’s conceiving and bearing a Son and calling His Name “Immanuel”, which means “God with us”. You see, Ahaz, who was the king of Judah then, apparently did not think that the Lord was with him and his people, as they were seeking human help from the king of Assyria in an expected war against Syria and Ephraim. Even as the Lord spoke to Ahaz, apparently through Isaiah (Isaiah 7:3), commanding Ahaz to ask a sign of the Lord’s promised deliverance, the Lord was giving Ahaz an opportunity to repent and believe, but Ahaz pretended to be so pious that he would not ask a sign as commanded or, as he said, put the Lord to the test (see Deuteronomy 6:16; confer Oswalt, ad loc Isaiah 7:10-17, p.203). Ahaz refused to believe, so the prophecy of Immanuel brought the judgment of condemnation upon him and upon his line of Davidic kings, but the prophecy of Immanuel brought the blessing of salvation upon those who believed. (Confer Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 1:18-25, pp.13-14; Keil-Delitzsch, ad loc Isaiah 7:14-17, pp.218-220).
The Lord likewise gives us opportunities to repent and believe. Instead of mistaking the things that we see or experience and concluding that God is absent from us, we are to believe that God is present with us, and, instead of mistaking anything that happens to us that we think of as bad as evidence that God is present with us to judge us, we are to believe, on the basis of His Word, that God is present with us to save us. Although on account of our original and actual sins we deserve God’s judgment of condemnation and His sentence of death here and now and eternal torment in hell, we are to believe that instead God judges us not guilty for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ. In the words of today’s Introit (Psalm 130:5-8; antiphon: Isaiah 64:1), the Lord has rent the heavens and come down, and with Him is steadfast love and plentiful redemption, for He has redeemed all people from all of their iniquities. So, we wait for Him in faith, and in Him we have sure and certain hope.
Ahaz the son of David failed to accept the Lord’s offer of a sign, but, as we heard in today’s Gospel Reading, Joseph the son of David accepted the Lord’s sign about the virgin’s conceiving and bearing a Son and calling His Name “Immanuel”, which means “God with us” (TLSB, ad loc Isaiah 7:14-17, p.1101). Of course, God had been with His people to save them prior to the birth of His Son in human flesh, but, in Jesus, God is uniquely present as never before. Through Isaiah, God prophesied directly of Mary and Jesus. Fulfilling that prophecy was necessary in some sense because the prophecy was made, but the prophecy was only made because of God’s gracious will to save all people. God the Father’s angel announced to Joseph that Mary’s Son was from—or, “of”—the Holy Spirit. And, Mary is not just any “young woman” but specifically a virgin: as the Divinely-inspired St. Matthew makes clear: she was engaged, but she had not had sexual intercourse with her fiancé Joseph, though no one other than Mary would know for sure that she was a virgin without Divine revelation, such as that which Joseph received. Because of God the Father and the Holy Spirit’s involvement (confer Luke 1:35), Mary could remain a virgin through Jesus’s conception, and, because her Son was true God in human flesh, Mary could remain a virgin through Jesus’s birth. Because Jesus was human, He could die on the cross, and, because Jesus was God, His death on the cross could atone for the sins of the world, including your sins and my sins. As the virgin birth was a Divine sign of Jesus’s identity, it is said that his resurrection from the dead was a sign of Divine approval of what Jesus did (Scaer, CLD VI:39), and, as we heard in the Epistle Reading (Romans 1:1-7), by Jesus’s resurrection the Holy Spirit also declared Jesus to be the Son of God. As the name “Jesus” indicates, He saved not only His people Israel but all people from their sins, as those people repent of their sins and trust in Him. This deliverance is greater than that deliverance promised to Ahaz (TLSB, ad loc Isaiah 7:10-25, p.1102). Like Joseph, we are “just”—or, “righteous”—people, for we in repentance and faith we receive God’s forgiveness for Christ’s sake through His means of grace.
Later in his Gospel account, the Divinely-inspired St. Matthew records Jesus’s saying that, where two or three are gathered in His Name, there He is among them (Matthew 18:20). That wording is a little different than His name “Immanuel” as “God with us”, but the meaning is essentially the same (Grundmann, TDNT, 7:776). The context of Jesus’s statement is the Church’s retaining or forgiving sins through the exercise of the Office of the Keys (Matthew 18:15-20; confer 16:19): to groups such as this one, by reading and preaching God’s Word, and, to individuals, by applying that Word with water in Holy Baptism, with a pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ given for us and the Blood of Christ shed for us. In all these ways, God is present with us to save us. As the virgin birth was a sign, so all these are signs of God’s gracious will towards us, but they also create and confirm faith in us (confer Nafzger, CPR 33:1, p.28, with reference to Augsburg Confession XIII:1-2 and Apology of the Augsburg Confession XIII:5). The liturgical Salutation—“The Lord be with you”, “And with your Spirit”—at key places in the Divine Service, reflects our awareness both that the Lord is present with His gifts in our assembly and that the Lord has gifted His messengers with the Holy Spirit to act on behalf of Him and His people (Grundmann, TDNT, 7:778). As the Lord spoke through both the prophet Isaiah and the angel sent to Joseph, the Lord similarly speaks through those He sends in our time. God’s Word creates repentance and faith that receives His forgiveness one time in Baptism and repeatedly in both Absolution and the Lord’s Supper. And, we can be sure that the God-Man Jesus can be and truly is supernaturally present in the Lord’s Supper, just as He was born supernaturally of the Virgin Mary without violating her virginity (Formula of Concord Solid Declaration VII:100; VIII:24).
Still later in his Gospel account, the Divinely-inspired St. Matthew records Jesus’s saying that, by way of His Word and Sacraments, He is with His Church always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). “In Jesus, God is present to judge or to save us”; the difference is unbelief or faith, and we know that, for us who repent and believe, God is present to save us. God is with His Church in the war in Ukraine. God is with us through financial difficulties. God is with us through family conflict. God is with us in sickness and death. As with Ahaz and Joseph, God’s guiding hand works His good purposes. Even now He rules all things for the benefit of His Church (Ephesians 1:22 NIV), and He works all things together for the good of conforming us who love Him to the cross-shaped image of His Son, so that He may be the firstborn of many brothers (Romans 8:28-29). We do not need to be afraid, as Joseph was initially, to do the right thing. Immanuel visible in human flesh came once humbly; He invisibly comes now through His Word and Sacraments; and He again visibly will come a final time in glory. As we of His Church, the New Israel, sang in the Hymn of the Day calling for that final coming (Lutheran Service Book 357), “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel!”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +