Advent – Day 6
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” – Isaiah 7:14
I distinctly remember the birth of every one of my children. All five of them, unique in their own ways, were remarkable moments when I felt the breath of heaven and the presence of the Lord so near. Before the birth of my fourth child, the midwife prayed, and then our daughter made her appearance, and the divine seemed to intersect the temporal. This is the unfathomable gift of birth. And yet as sacred and miraculous as these moments are, we also realize they are the result of a created order. Birth arises through natural, biological processes. And every human birth has come forth this way.
Except for one.
Nearly 700 years before Gabriel would appear to Mary to reveal the astounding news that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God, the prophet Isaiah foretold of this miraculous conception. In Isaiah 7:14, we read “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
As shocking as this revelation would have been, Mary would have been well acquainted with the prophecy in Isaiah and would have understood the implications of it. She knew both the blessing and the burden of this calling. In fact, some theologians suggest being the mother to the messiah was an honor most Jewish mothers prayed would be theirs.
But it’s not just the miraculous divine circumstances of Jesus’ conception and birth that Isaiah foretells in this verse; he also foretells his name. This naming of the messiah hundreds of years before he was born reveals the eternal nature of God’s divine plan for redemption. Before Bethlehem or the manger or the shepherds or the magi, the gift of salvation was planned and predestined. In the infinite goodness and compassion of God, the miracle of God with us was unfolding through the promise of a prophesied, named baby boy.
It’s important to note that the word for name (שֵׁם) as indicated here refers not to a specific given name, but to renown, fame or a definite position. By announcing his name as Immanuel, Isaiah reveals the eternal scope of the son’s identity. He is God with us. It is hundreds of years later—when Gabriel appears to Mary and Joseph individually—that he gives the son the specific name Jesus. The word name (ὄνομα) in this case is specific and personal. It refers to something one is called, whereas the name given in Isaiah is a revelatory reference to the personhood of Jesus as “God with us.”
The name Immanuel establishes the son’s deity and reveals that God has arrived among us, and the name Jesus, which literally means “Jehovah is salvation”, affirms Jesus’ position as the long-awaited messiah. Both of these names, given to the savior before his birth, were prophetic promises of the one to come. And today, these names are reminders of the one who remains. Jesus was “God with us” to the first-century Jews, and he is “God with us” today. Jesus’ birth was a thrill of hope for the ancient weary world, and it’s a thrill of hope for our weary hearts now.
Today, take some time to reflect on the ancient prophecy of the virgin birth and the revelation of the savior’s names. Hundreds of years before he took his first breath, before the savior’s cry pierced the Bethlehem night, prophets foretold of the mystery and the miracle of his arrival. Today, we celebrate that arrival with a holy reverence because we too, are recipients of his gift of unfathomable grace. Dear Lord, thank you for the revelation of your son throughout thousands of years. Thank you for the gift of Immanuel. He is the hope that buoys our weary hearts and the light that pierces our darkness. May we receive this mystery of salvation with a unceasing wonder.
I’ll be back on Monday with Advent – Day 7. I pray you have a blessed weekend!
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