Series

It’s always interesting to see how artists picture the Baby Jesus. Here are just a few that I pulled off the internet. The first one is very sweet, stylized, innocent, unrealistic. The second attempts to convey His deity with the halo, and His future teaching ministry with the raised hand and unnaturally mature expression on His face. The third one reflects the accurate belief that Jesus is the Savior of all people, of all races everywhere.

But it’s hard to know, isn’t it? No one was there, taking digital photos and posting them on the World Wide Web. The artists’ conceptions probably tell us more about the artists than they do about Jesus. His identity and His nature have been a puzzle for 2,000 years.

As we have worked our way through Mark’s gospel over the past months, we have often seen that the disciples were confused about who Jesus was. They said, “Who is this, that even the wind and waves obey Him?” They were completely amazed that He could walk on water. They didn’t understand that His ability to feed thousands of people with just a little food meant that they didn’t have to worry about not having enough bread in the boat.

The problem was that Jesus looked so…normal! He was thoroughly Jewish in His ethnicity; He was not a particularly good looking man (Isaiah 53:2); He spoke excellent Aramaic and Greek; He knew the history of the Jews, and their sacred writings. He appeared for all the world like a Jewish carpenter turned itinerant rabbi.

But He kept doing things that no human could possibly do. It really wasn’t until after the resurrection that His followers came to the settled and firm conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth was not just human. They finally came to believe that He was, in some way that no one could explain, divine. He was fully human, but at the same time He was fully God.

Matthew put it this way: After recounting Joseph’s shock at discovering that Mary was pregnant, and his plan to divorce her quietly, Matthew says, 1:20, “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. …[22] All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: [23] ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which [Matthew adds] means, ‘God with us.’” In the immediate context, Isaiah’s prophecy probably meant that a child would be born who would be a sign that God was with Israel. But from Matthew’s perspective 700 years later, he can see that this name means literally what it says: Jesus was God, with them in the flesh.

The apostle John put it in a cosmic context: John 1:1-3, “In the beginning (That’s the same “beginning” as in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”) was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [2] He was with God in the beginning. [3] Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” This one existed before there was anything at all. He has always existed. He is fully divine—“the Word was God.” This was the eternal expression of God, and through Him, God created the entire universe.

Then, at a particular time in human history, John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Word became flesh. John wisely refrains from trying to explain that; this is not comprehensible to human minds. All John knows is that somehow, Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate- in carne, in human flesh. He didn’t just take on a human shell; He became human. And then He lived among us. He was literally God—with us. What an incredible experience for those people who saw and heard Him, for those whom He healed and fed and taught!

As evangelicals, we often spend a lot of time emphasizing the deity of Christ, because this is what is disputed by most who are not yet His followers. From the perspective of those who knew Jesus while He was here, and most secular people today, they have trouble wrapping their minds around the fact that this man, who was so obviously and completely a man, was also quite a bit more than that. But the humanity of Christ is equally important, and that’s really the flip side of the incarnation. From the perspective of God, and the pre-incarnate Christ, the challenge was getting all of the divine nature into a human being.

When Jesus took on a human body and nature, He had all the weaknesses and limitations that we do. For example, His body was not that of the cartoon superheroes, who are invulnerable to bullets, who can fly through the air, or swing from spiders’ webs. He walked everywhere He went, He got tired, He got hungry and thirsty, He suffered real human pain, and He died just like anyone else would do.

Jesus also had a human mind that the Scripture says increased in wisdom (Luke 2:52), so he went through a learning process just like all children. He had to learn how to walk, and talk, and read and write, and be obedient to His parents.

Jesus had human emotions: He was troubled in spirit; He was amazed at the faith of the centurion, and frustrated with the disciples because they were so slow to grasp who He really was. He wept with grief at the graveside of His friend, Lazarus. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He was very sorrowful, perhaps even fearful, because of what He knew was coming.

He was even tempted in all the ways that we are, and felt the force of those temptations, but never gave in to them.

All of these things made it possible for Jesus to really identify with us in our humanity and weakness. As Hebrews says, this means He can sympathize with us (Heb 4:15); He has walked a mile in our moccasins, and He does understand what it means to be human, so He can be a gentle shepherd of His flock. Not only that, but remember, the reason He came was to die as a sacrifice in our place. He had to be fully human in order to be that substitute. The blood of bulls and goats can’t take away sin; it has to be a human life for another human life.

There was a time when some U.S. soldiers were captured and held as prisoners of war. They were regularly beaten in the course of their interrogations, and were held in a room with no windows, no furniture, just a concrete floor. The Navy SEALs were charged with rescuing those men in a dangerous night mission. After sneaking their way in to the area, the SEALs stormed the building, killed the guards, and finally managed to break down the locked door to the room where the prisoners were. The SEALs were naturally in a hurry to get out of there with the prisoners, but the prisoners wouldn’t move. They were huddled on the floor in the fetal position, and acted like they were terrified of their rescuers. The only time uniformed men had come to their cell, it was to beat them some more, and no manner of pleading, yelling, ordering, or anything else would get the poor men to move. Finally, one of the SEALs took off his helmet and night vision goggles, and laid down on the floor in the fetal position next to the prisoners. After awhile, the men realized that this one who had come to be with them in their plight was there to save them, not hurt them, and they finally got up and followed the SEALs out of their prison.

Jesus Christ came to earth to rescue us from our selves and our sin. To do that, He became one of us, so we would know He was a friend of sinners like ourselves.

So Jesus came to earth as Immanuel, God with us. But that was a long time ago. It’s been 2,000 years since God walked the earth as a man. What about us? Is there any sense in which Jesus is still “God with us”?

Just before Jesus left the earth, He said to His followers, Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, [20] and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." If He was promising to be with someone to the end of the age, He couldn’t have meant just the apostles who were living then; He meant all who would become His followers.

The Scripture is filled with places where it says God was with someone. Let’s just look at a few of them, to see what we can expect when God is with us.

Joseph was one of the sons of Jacob, later named Israel. He had a dream in which his brothers and his parents bowed down to him, and he unwisely shared that with them. That made the brothers so angry that they sold him to some Egyptian slave traders, and he wound up as a slave in the household of a man named Potiphar, hundreds of miles from home. Genesis 39:2-3 says that, “The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. [3] When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did,” Potiphar put him in charge of his whole household.

Then Potiphar’s wife lied about Joseph’s morals, so Potiphar threw him in prison. Well, this doesn’t look good. It was bad enough to be a household slave; now he’s in a terrible prison. But, again, Genesis 39:21, “the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. …23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.”

This incident raises the question, What does it mean to succeed? Have you ever thought about that? What would it mean for you to succeed? Some of you no doubt feel like you have been successful in life, but I would guess that many of us are still looking for that elusive goal. Joseph’s example teaches us that success does not necessarily mean wealth, fame, a life of comfort and ease and pleasure. On one level, Joseph’s career was going backwards—from shepherd of his father’s sheep, to household slave, to prisoner! But in the midst of all that, God was giving him success in everything he did in those situations. It’s true that later, he was elevated to the position of second in command in all of Egypt, but the Bible makes a point of saying that Joseph was successful in everything he did, while he was in those very difficult situations. It’s not that he was only successful in the end—he was successful all along the way. Because God was with him.

The priest, Samuel, is another example. 1 Samuel 3:19, “The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.” What did it mean for a priest to be successful? Well, certainly, there were lots of dimensions to his ministry, but one of them was to speak to the people about their relationship with God. God being with Samuel meant that his words had their intended impact. They didn’t fall to the ground like an arrow that was shot too short; every one of them found its intended target in the hearts and minds of the people. Boy! that’s a goal for every preacher and teacher—that our words would not fall to the ground, but would influence people, pointing them to God, convicting them of sin, encouraging the fainthearted, supporting the weak, etc. Every parent needs to call on God to be with them in this way, that their words to their children will be effective in training those kids to know and love God, to be obedient children, to grow up to be responsible adults who will contribute to society and advance the kingdom of God. That’s what every parent here wants for their kids, and God can do that for us as He is with us.

Gideon lived in the time after Israel had conquered the Canaanites, but before there was a king in Israel. It was kind of a “wild west” sort of time, when people pretty much did what they wanted, and that meant that they often went astray from God. When they sinned, God would send the neighboring peoples to attack them (Judges 2:14). Eventually, the Israelites would realize that they were being punished, repent, turn back to God, and cry out to Him for deliverance. So He would send them leaders called “judges” (though they functioned more like military leaders than civil judges we might think of deciding legal cases).

Judges 6:1-6 (NLT) tells us, “Again the Israelites did what was evil in the Lord's sight. So the Lord handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. [2] The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites fled to the mountains, where they made hiding places for themselves in caves and dens. [3] Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian …would attack Israel, [4] camping in the land and destroying crops... They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, oxen, and donkeys. [5] These enemy hordes, coming with their cattle and tents as thick as locusts, arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. [6] So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord for help.” Finally! After seven years of that!

So God sent them a man named Gideon. He sent an angel to Gideon to call him to this task. Judges 6:12, “When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.’ [13] ‘But sir,’ Gideon replied, ‘if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about when they said, “Did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?” But now the Lord has abandoned us and put us into the hand of Midian.’”

This incident shows that the presence of the Lord does not always mean that everything goes perfectly. It might mean just that God has not abandoned us, and that He is planning some good for us in the future. Gideon was convinced God had abandoned them, because the Midianites kept attacking and persecuting them. But the angel could say, No, God is still with you Israelites, and with you, in particular, Gideon, because you are going to be God’s solution to the Midianite mess.

So, let’s say you are facing a very difficult situation of some sort, and it has been going on for months or years, and you have begun to think that maybe God has given up on you. This passage says, No, He hasn’t. He is still with you. He has said He will never leave you or forsake you, and He won’t. Jesus promised to be with you to the very end of the age, and He will. And maybe you will be the Gideon, the man or woman God is going to use to bring a solution to that situation. Even now God may be working in you, developing gifts and convictions and strengths that He will use to do great things. Don’t think God isn’t with you just because things are tough right now. Keep looking to Him to bring you through that, and He may just surprise you in how He does it.

If Jesus—Immanuel, God with us—is the eternal One, the Creator of all that is, God in human flesh, then it makes sense that His presence with us should be the antidote to fear. Over and over again in the Scriptures, God offers His presence as the reason His people should not be afraid.

When the Israelites were in the wilderness, Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan, to check it out. When they came back, ten of them reported that the people there were huge, and they lived in fortified cities, and there was no way the Israelites were going to be able to defeat them. Only Joshua and Caleb thought they could do it. These two believed God’s promise to give them the land, and fully believed that they could do it with God’s help. They pleaded with the rest, Numbers 14:9, “Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” Basically, they were saying, it doesn’t matter what the opposition is like; God plus anybody is a majority. We shouldn’t be afraid.

In Isaiah 41, God is speaking to His people, Israel. He mentions all the international turmoil going on in the world around them, and insists that He is the one who is moving nations and men around according to His plan. Then He turns to Israel and reminds them that He called them into a special relationship with Himself. Isaiah 41:10, “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” In the context, that’s the right hand of Almighty God who is moving the nations around like pieces on a chess board. That’s the God who is “with us” in Jesus Christ.

What are you afraid of today? What is causing you to lie awake at night, staring into the darkness? What gnaws at your stomach and prowls around the margins of your mind all through the day? I encourage you to step out of your immediate circumstances, take an extra long time in your devotions, and meditate on who it is who has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Heb 13:5; Dt 31:6); “I will be with you to the very end of the age” (Matt 28:20). The God who made the world, who sovereignly governs the affairs of men and of nations, the God of Joseph, and Samuel, and Gideon—that God is with you. Stop and sense His arms around you, His shield in front of you, His angels rallying to your defense. He is committed to you—and the cross is the proof of that. Let that assurance seep into your soul, until the anxiety drains out and you can rest in Him.

When God promised to be with His people in the Old Testament, and when Jesus promised His followers that He would be with us to the end of the age, were there any conditions on that? Was that just a blanket, unilateral promise from God? Or do we have to do anything to qualify for His presence?

In one sense, no—there is nothing we have to do, because God is everywhere all the time. So no matter where we are, or what we are doing, or what our attitude is, God is with us. Psalm 139 is eloquent in its insistence that whether we go to the heights of heaven or the depths of Sheol, whether we go as far east as we can, or as far west, whether we hide in the darkness or wherever, God is there.

But the Bible most often uses this phrase, “God with us” not just to refer to His omnipresence, but to His special blessing—along the lines of what we have already seen. But for us to experience and enjoy His presence in that way requires that we be with Him.

When Asa was king of Judah, God sent a prophet named Azariah to him with a message. These were the days when the kings of Israel and Judah were commonly leading the people astray spiritually. They were wicked and corrupt men, and they did not know the Lord God of Israel. So Azariah the prophet went out to meet King Asa, and said to him, 2 Chron. 15:2, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.”

So let’s say you are a follower of Christ. You have put your trust in Him as your Savior and Lord at some time in the past, but more recently you have been drifting from Him. Maybe you were disappointed that He didn’t answer a very important and urgent prayer; maybe you have just gotten distracted by all the fun things to do in the world; maybe a friend has led you away from your walk with God; or maybe you are just feeling rebellious and are sort of tired of taking orders from King Jesus. So what now? Is God with you in that condition? Yes, and no. Yes, He is with you in the sense of being all around you, closer than any person could be. But no, His blessings and benefits are not available to you because of your attitude toward Him. “The Lord is with you when you are with Him.”

The good news is that the Lord is still with you in the sense that if you seek Him, He will let you find Him. “If you seek Him, He will be found by you.” But if you turn away from God, He will turn away from you.

If that’s your situation today, I want to encourage you to turn back to the Lord. He is right there with you, but you’re not benefiting from His presence. Repent of your sin, turn away from the things that have kept you from God, and return to Him now. Why remain outside His love, His protection, His provision? Why miss out on the success that He wants to give you? Why be afraid any longer? Come back to Him, and He will surely be with you.

[1] These ideas are drawn from Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (InterVarsity Press and Zondervan Publishing House, 1994), p.532ff.

^{^[2]} cf.2 Chron. 17:3, “The Lord was with Jehoshaphat because in his early years he walked in the ways his father David had followed. He did not consult the Baals.”