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What is so great about Jesus? His name is Immanuel

A famous Old Testament passage gives us this name for Christ. “The Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). 

The Hebrew name Immanuel means simply, “God is with us.” Throughout the Bible one of the essential assurances that God gives to his people is that he will be with us. “Fear not, for I am with you . . . .” (Genesis 26:24). Not surprisingly, therefore, in the New Testament we find Jesus comforting his disciples with this same promise. “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Jesus is God with us. 

Why is this so important for us to understand and take to heart? Because God is so immense, powerful, and holy, it can often seem to us that he is removed from us, even uncaring, and unapproachable. 

But then comes Jesus into our world. Jesus who is God in the flesh, God incarnate. Christ set aside his unapproachable glory—to our eyes—and became just like us. “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:5-7). 

The very God who created us in his image, came to earth in our image, that we might know with certainty that he is Immanuel, the God who is with us, always. 

Because Jesus is God with us we can better see God’s love for us. Now we know, for he has given us this tangible proof, that he cares enough about us to enter our world as one of us. The Nicene Creed states: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” When we see that God was so moved by love for us to accommodate himself to us by stooping down to become one of us, we more easily comprehend and feel God’s love for us. God is with us! 

Because Jesus is God with us, we can come to know God in ways that we might have missed before. We see in Jesus the perfect image of his Father. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). We can see in Christ grace and truth, love and justice, humility and boldness, all packaged in a human-sized container. 

Because Jesus is God with us we are assured that he truly does understand us. He has always understood us, of course, having made us. But with Christ among us, now we know that he truly does get us, for he is “like his brothers in every respect” (Hebrews 2:17), except never yielding to temptation. He knows, viscerally and experientially, what it is like to walk in this world, in our shoes. He dealt with loneliness, hope, friendship, enemies, slander, love, betrayal, even death. All for us. 

Because Jesus is God with us, we can rest assured that we may come to God the Father in prayer through Christ his Son, readily, freely, and always. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23). The God, who in his transcendence appeared unapproachable, now though this Son, is easily sought and found. 

Because Jesus is God with us, we can be assured that we are never alone, that we can never be alone, no matter how lonely we may feel. “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). No matter how many friends leave us, no matter how many coworkers betray us, no matter who abandons us, we can always have Immanuel with us. For Christ is God with us. 

Immanuel. Please, do remember this beautiful name of Christ, and let remind us always that “God is with us.”