121216 Rekindle Christmas: Immanuel King

Immanuel still? In Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus (Mt. 1:18-24), Joseph is the central character, as opposed to Luke’s Mary. Joseph gets the tragic news of Mary’s “condition”: his fiancé is pregnant, but they haven’t consummated their marriage yet. Naturally, Joseph wanted to dump her. But Matthew paints him nobly – no need to make the situation worse by having her stoned – just let her suffer the consequences of her indiscretion alone. Before he moves forward, he decides to sleep on it first. Usually a good idea. But then he has a profound dream that goes against whatever internal stuff might be going on. God shows up, not to applaud him for his graceful decision, but to correct him and point him in a Kingdom direction.

Immanuel means “God with us” – something people would call Jesus when they experienced what God was doing in and through him. Joseph began experiencing Immanuel before the birth, though, and it changed his life. He wasn’t expecting it. While there were pockets of Jewish folks who claimed to have spiritual knowledge – gnostic – they were definitely not mainstream. The leading Jewish class, the Sadducees, were much more interested in a theology and practice which maintained their prominence as leaders in Jerusalem. Pharisees, who taught mostly outside of Jerusalem, were focused much more on understanding and applying the scriptures. They are painted by the gospel writers as being dogmatic and often judgmental, focusing more on the letter than the spirit of the law they loved. In which camp was Joseph most comfortable? It is nearly impossible to say with certainty. Either he was open to God speaking to him and therefore recognized it when it happened in the vehicle of a dream, or his got his mind blown when God showed up beyond the pages of scripture. Either way, the point is that God showed up and he knew it.

Does God still show up? Is “Immanuel” descriptive of our faith experience?

The in-breaking of God into the human experience is what makes the birth story of Jesus so controversial, isn’t it? This isn’t a neat and clean amazing story. The inference is that something extraordinary happened. Supernatural.

Do we have any room in our lives for the supernatural?

The Bible is full of examples of God breaking into the human experience. Abraham sensed God leading him to do life and faith completely different than he had at home in present-day Iraq. His grandson Jacob had a vision of angels, and even experienced wrestling one. His son Joseph had strange dreams that were incredibly vivid. He could interpret the dreams of others, too, with great accuracy. Moses experienced a burning bush that talked, as well as incredible miracles and mountain-top moments. Joshua walked through a divided Jordan River, and got military advice from an angel. Elijah was part of an incredible fireworks display on God’s part, yet also discovered God’s voice in silence. There are many, many more – and these all took place centuries before Jesus was born!

I wonder if we have mixed feelings about this whole thing. We like the idea of Immanuel, but perhaps fear its reality. We like to control things, and Immanuel requires us to acquiesce to Another’s control. I want God to give me good health, good parking spaces, winning lottery tickets, etc., but do I want to be called to a difficult path? I want God to show up, but how much am I really comfortable with?

Immanuel has been experienced in a variety of ways. The trouble comes when we assume one way is THE way God should be experienced. Maybe we need to drop the shoulds. And maybe we also need to drop our need to explain everything – especially if it is really just a way to keep God at arms length.
The witness of the Bible on the whole is that Immanuel lives up to his name, that “God with us” is a good thing and not a dreaded thing. If this is who God is, maybe we need to spend more time discovering just how Immanuel lives up to his name with us. You might have experiences of God’s presence like mine. But you might not. Yours might be very different from mine because we are different. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Immanuel is a reality that Jesus embodied and enabled for many. He opened the door for countless millions to say "Immanuel" with personal conviction.

Do you want Immanuel?

King of who? The Magi were interesting characters for Matthew to highlight. They were men from another tradition who recognized spiritual activity through astrology and other signs.  Perhaps the stars (or planets) aligned, which they interpreted as a sign that a king was born to the people of Israel. Off they went to Jerusalem, the Capitol City, where they assumed they would find a newborn king. With them they brought appropriate gifts that carried great meaning for kings of that era who naturally claimed a certain amount of divinity, since the gods put them in that position in the first place. Gold – always a safe gift for a ruler. Frankincense – a tool for interacting with the gods in priest-like fashion. And myrrh – extremely valuable and used for burial rites (an allusion to his martyrdom, perhaps?). They came because they knew the appropriate thing to do was go pay homage to the king.

Going along with Matthew’s story, we can also safely assume, I think, that Joseph interpreted the message from the angel that Jesus was going to be the long-awaited Messiah – a king-like ruler who had the beloved King David in his bloodline. The Greek name, Jesus (Hebrew: Joshua), means the “Lord saves”. “Saves” could have easily been translated “rescue” as well. Many Jews at that time were looking to God to rescue them from the hands of the Roman Empire – saving them from the sins that got them there in the first place. Joseph knew a king was being born, too. So he rose from his dreamy slumber and did what you do for a king – obey.

Here in the United States, we don’t do well with kings. It’s in our national DNA to rebel against kings. We like our independence, and don’t like anyone telling us what to do or how to do it. Am I right?

How do we, as freedom people, embrace the idea of Jesus as King? Do you want a King Jesus?

I wonder if we really prefer a Consultant Jesus. An on-call Immanuel who is only with us when we really want him, and serves mainly to advise – no real power or authority to tell us what to do. Is this what you prefer?

The problem, of course, is that while we have the freedom to not embrace Immanuel King, it does not reflect God’s dream, which turns out is also our deepest, greatest, and best dream as well. God’s dream is that we experience Immanuel, and that happens the more we let him be King. The abundant life which is found following Jesus on the Way requires us to be on the Way – not just the parts we feel like. God is not forcing Immanuel on us. But Immanuel, by definition, is with us always. The real question whose answer truly makes all the difference between getting through life versus living abundantly is not whether or not God is with us, but are we with God?

Resources
1. Faith is meant to be a dynamic relationship, not simply a belief system o guide our moral behavior. All people find themselves at times feeling disconnected from God. Just speaking practically, how do you manage your life to foster a relationship with God? Do you have times of quiet when you can simply breathe, listen, think, express, etc.? Are you serving in some capacity – giving back with no interest in being repaid in some way? Are you reading anything that will help grow your relationship with God (the Bible; books that touch on God themes – even if not overtly; fiction lovers: read Les Miserables – lots of God in there). Are you talking on deeper themes with trusted friends that will give you support and nurture growth? Most of us struggle to do this “quality time” stuff. If it were any other kind of relationship, we would know that we haven’t invested in quality time, and that was what was causing relational distance. What changes do you need to make in order that the most important relationship in life works?

2. Our relationship with God is unique in that we believe God knows more and better than we do about everything. Sometimes we have roadblocks in our faith because there are things we know God is asking of us and we refuse. This would hamper any relationship, right? Is there an area of your life, or a behavior, or an attitude, etc., where you sense God calling you to trust and obey but you aren’t? What is keeping you from going for it?

3. Watch and share Dave Matthew’s Band Mercy video shown today and pray the message catches fire. Read and ponder the lyrics below:

Mercy

Don't give up
I know you can see
All the world and the mess that we're making
Can't give up
And hope God will intercede
Come on back
Imagine that we could get it together
Stand up for what we need to be
‘Cause crime won’t save or feed a hungry child
Can't lay down and wait for a miracle to change things
So lift up your eyes
Lift up your heart

Singing mercy will we overcome this
Oh one by one could we turn it around
Maybe carry on just a little bit longer
And I'll try to give you what you need

Me and you and you and you
Just wanna be free yeah
But you see all the world is just as we've made it
And until we got a new world
I've got to say that love is not a whisper or a weakness

No love is strong
So we got to get together yeah
Gotta get gotta get gotta get
Til there is no reason
To fight

Mercy will we overcome this
Yeah one by one could we turn it around
Maybe carry on just a little bit longer
And I'll try to give you what you need

Mercy will we overcome this
Have we come too far to turn it around
Ask too much to be a little bit stronger
Cause I wanna give you what you need

Mercy what will become of us
Oh one by one could we turn it around
Maybe carry on just a little bit longer
And I'll try to give you what you need