Fourth Sunday in Advent: "God With Us"

+4^th Sunday in Advent – December 22^nd, 2019 +

Series A: Isaiah 7:10-17; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25

Beautiful Savior Lutheran

Milton, WA

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When Jesus taught his disciples about the kingdom of God, it’s no accident that he chose a little child for his object lesson. “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

It’s not hard to imagine why Jesus did this. Children are known for their simple, childlike trust and faith, such as we heard confessed earlier. Their joy in praise and singing, such as we heard this morning. Their questions and thoughts about Jesus. So often, children have a way of confessing the faith and speaking wisdom beyond their years. A remarkable way of getting to the heart of the story.

Take for example, the middle schooler at Concordia Lutheran who asked me: “Why were the shepherds the first to see Jesus after he was born?” Or the preschooler last week who, while we were reading a Christmas story with Jesus in the manger, noticed that the iron beams of our church ceiling resembled the wooden beams of the stable. “The church is like the stable,” he said. 

These two children, each in their own way, get to the heart of Christmas story from Matthew’s Gospel. And in doing so, reveal the very heart of the Gospel Jesus delivers to us in his birth.

 “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

God comes to us, of all places, in the form of a little child. God almighty becomes an infant lowly to save us. The Son of God becomes the Son of Mary to save us sons of Adam and make us children of God. God becomes our brother and redeemer that we may call God Father. Jesus is born a helpless child to save us, helpless in our sin. It’s no accident that the first people to greet Jesus are shepherds – the outcasts and the lowest of the low. Jesus came for them, as he comes for us, outcast and lowly in sin. A shepherd for the lost sheep. The Lamb of God for poor shepherds and poor miserable sinners.

All of this was done, Matthew declares, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

There’s an eternity of God’s promises packed into those three words. God with us. Immanuel. God’s presence, peace, and promise. God’s mercy, grace, and love. All of it, wrapped up in the Christ child who’s wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. God with us in human flesh. God with us in hunger, tears, sickness, and health. God with us pain, sorrow, joy, and sadness. God with us in life, death, and resurrection. God with us in the stable, on the cross, in the tomb and out again. 

This is how God is with us still. In humble, hidden, yet glorious ways, just as he was in the manger long ago. God with us in the cradle of his Word where Christ comes to us. God with us in manger of the font where we are born again in Jesus. God with us in the Supper where the Word made flesh feeds us with his flesh and blood. 

That preschooler was right. The church really is the stable. God with us, this Advent and always.

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.