Immanuel: Our Last and Only Hope for Peace

“Later, the Lord sent this message to King Ahaz: ‘Ask the Lord your God for a sign of confirmation, Ahaz. Make it as difficult as you want; as high as heaven or as deep as the place of the dead.’ But the king refused. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will not test the Lord like that.’ Then Isaiah said, ‘Listen well, you royal family of David! Isn’t it enough to exhaust human patience? Must you exhaust the patience of my God as well? All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). By the time this child is old enough to choose what is right and reject what is wrong, he will be eating yogurt and honey. For before the child is that old, the lands of the two kings you fear so much will both be deserted.’” (Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25) (Also read Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7) Where do you look for hope and peace in this world? In a recent well-known journal interview, Wendell Berry said, “Hope is a theological virtue. That means that you’ve got to try to have it. It’s not just a feeling. You’re not hopeful just because you woke up in a good mood. You’re hopeful because you found reasons. You’ve convinced yourself that something better is possible and you’ve found a way to work for it.” Have you found reasons to be hopeful lately? Hope is crucial to rolling out of bed each day. Hope brings to us a way of looking at life with what David Stendal-Rast calls “openness for surprise.” People of hope have the capacity to be surprised. Sometimes life has dealt us such grave hardships that we will not allow ourselves to hope, to be open for surprise. The latest surprises have been too painful. But C. S. Lewis says that surprise is the signature of grace. Have you found reasons for hope lately? They can be difficult to find.

I.) Babies as signs of hope. Sometimes hope comes wrapped in a blanket and lying in a crib, making you roll out of bed in the middle of the night. The screaming song babies sing pierces your night-time peace. But their presence gives you reason to hope. Henri Nouwen writes about two friends of his who struggled with the idea of bringing a baby into this world but decided to do so anyway. The baby’s name was Hannah. Nouwen said that when he held her, because he knew her parents and their struggle with this maddening violent world, he was able to see her in ways he had never seen a baby before. He said, “This small and fragile child, looking trustfully at me with her beautiful dark eyes, told me something new about resistance that I had not known before. She told me that there is hope even when optimism seems absurd; there is love even when people die of fear; and there is reason to celebrate even in a civilization dressed in mourning for its own rapid decline.” Giving life to a new human being can be an act of resistance in this world. It is saying loudly, for us life is stronger than death, love is stronger than fear and hope is stronger than despair. Babies can be signs of hope.

II.) The sign of the baby in Isaiah. Such was the case in Isaiah’s day. Isaiah had been called by YAHVEH, says Molly Marshall of this teaching’s text, “to speak the divine word to a beleaguered nation suffering an identity crisis.” Do you think we can relate? Jerusalem is under the threat of attack from surrounding neighbours. King Ahaz is scared to death and intimidated. Scripture says his heart “shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” He’s so frightened, he’s about to make a major policy decision to appeal for help from Assyria, a decision Walter Brueggemann says reflects “short-term panic and long-term foolishness.” The prophet is trying to help the king see that the world looks very different when you are not consumed by fear. The choice King Ahaz faces is the choice you and I face: the choice of faith versus fear and the two worlds that result from faith and from fear. Isaiah brings a needed word to us as he, firmly in the prophetic tradition, talks about faith and fear as a public policy issue. Whether we choose the path of faith or of fear matters significantly in concrete decisions that must be made in the real world, in public discussions of war and peace, prosperity and poverty.

III.) The sign of the baby in Matthew. The sign of hope and peace in the promise of a baby also came to a young couple in Nazareth named Mary and Joseph. Times were as dreadful as they were in Isaiah’s day, if not more so. So Matthew remembered the story of Isaiah and Ahaz and made the baby connection. The Baby of whom Isaiah spoke to be named Immanuel was YAHVEH’s sign of hope and peace for Ahaz. The Baby of which Matthew speaks to be named Immanuel; though not the same baby; is YAHVEH’s sign of hope and peace for the entire world. Just like Ahaz, Joseph is afraid. And just as Isaiah told King Ahaz, “Do not fear,” the angel said to Joseph, “Do not fear, for the child within Mary is Immanuel, a sign that ‘YAHVEH is with us.’” And miracle of miracles, in contrast to King Ahaz, Joseph had the faith to trust beyond his fears and the courage to act as YAHVEH told him.

IV.) What does it mean to be saved from our sins? The angel said to Joseph that the Baby born to him and Mary shall be called Yeshua, which means “YAHVEH saves,” for He will save His people from their sins. How does Yeshua save us from our sins? One way that Yeshua seeks to save us from our sins is His call not to be ruled by fear but guided by faith. Many mistakes are made when fear is the context out of which we live. So Isaiah tells King Ahaz, “Do not fear.” And the angel says to Joseph, “Do not be afraid.” Why these warnings against fear? How is it possible not to be afraid in this frightening world? Both Isaiah and the angel point to babies as signs of hope and say that the babies bear the name Immanuel. They are signs that “YAHVEH is with us.” Someone has said that “Babies are YAHVEH’s way of saying the world must go on.” Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. For YAHVEH is with us. To heed the call of Yeshua to justice can save us from the sins of injustice. Our greed and consumption of material possessions lead to great injustices all over the world. We seek ways to control what we think we need. Others work for unfair wages so that we can buy what we want inexpensively. The call to justice is a call to care for the poor. Learning justice was our second stop on this Advent pilgrimage of peace. Because to live in peace requires justice. Yeshua calls us to nonviolence to save us from the sins of violence. When injustice is present, Yeshua said, get mad about it and act against it, but do not resort to violence. If only the followers of Yeshua in this world took the pledge of non-violence, most wars could never take place and fewer people would want to make war against those who have learned the ways of non-violence. This is one way the cross of Yeshua saves us from sin as it teaches us non-violence and the willingness to suffer for others. The call of Yeshua to forgive those who hurt us saves us from the sins of hatred and anger. To choose the way of non-violence is to choose the way of forgiveness. Again, the cross of HaMashiach is our salvation. As He was brutally slaughtered on the cross, retaliation and violence were not His responses. But rather, the most amazing word of grace our world has perhaps ever heard: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Our willingness and ability to forgive others is nurtured within us by YAHVEH’s forgiving grace in our own lives. YAHVEH’s forgiveness offered in HaMashiach saves us from the shame of our past. Peace comes only as we learn to live with our past and to be released from the guilt and shame that past may bring. That’s what salvation is. To be made whole. To be healed on the inside from all that tears us apart. And it is the gift of YAHVEH.