“Oh come, Oh come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel.”So goes one of our favorite advent hymns that it seems we sing every year. But what does it mean for Emmanuel to come? What does it mean for Messiah to be born among humans? What does it mean for God to become flesh? This is indeed the central mystery of our faith and a stumbling block to many who would otherwise consider the teachings of Christianity.

For many of us also, we struggle to make sense of some claims of the Bible about Jesus. How can we reconcile the fact that the God of the universe who is immensely powerful, immensely strong, immensely creative, has deemed it worthy to become one of us? To become one who eats sleeps, yes, even goes to the bathroom. To some detractors of our faith, this is all it takes to prove the point that our religion is made up. That our religion is, frankly, silly in light of all the scientific achievement that we’ve come to know since the Enlightenment tempered faith claims with true reason.

Many people who have turned from the faith or have found reason to avoid becoming a follower of Jesus have noted similar concerns when responding to questions about why they are not people of faith. I do understand their point. After all, it is a bit odd, if we but admit it, that our God has chosen such a unique way of saving the world. In fact, in one of the musical presentations that I’ve done over the course of the years, there was a song entitled A Strange Way to Save the World. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Jesus’ incarnation, the teaching that Jesus became truly and fully human, is at the center of our faith. We believe that in order to solve the problems humanity had created for themselves because of sin, broken relationships, and just plain selfishness that God had to enter the story to intervene.

Remember that God is not some mere “sky genie” that whiles away the time up in heaven listening to fat little cherubs play harps. No, rather, the God of the universe, as revealed in the Bible, tells us of an intense interest in humans. There are several places in the story of the Bible in which we have already seen this dynamic. Remember that in Eden, God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Remember that God had a personal conversation with Cain after he murdered his brother Abel. Remember, at the Tower of Babel, that God threatened to intervene and did so after the people tried to bring God down to their level. And in the story of God, the personal presence of God is a major theme as God meets with Abraham in some unexpected and very personal encounters. And then, for all Israel, God made the tabernacle the place where God’s glory would dwell and God would live in the midst of the people.

So, when we say that Emmanuel means God with us, it is not without precedent. It has always been God’s desire to live with and among people. Simply put, God does not desire to live alone in the world. In fact, we believe that God has never been alone. God has always existed as a community, what we call the Trinity, a community of mutual love and interaction. In some way, we humans provide a fleshly analog to this. We, as a diverse community of people with different traits and skills and gifts, embody the relational life of the Trinity as we love and care for one another. And any failure to do so results in a state of affairs we call sin. Sin is missing the mark in our task of imaging God by failing in some way to love God or to love our neighbor.

Perhaps, In light of this discussion, then, it becomes a little bit easier to believe the claims of Christmas. It becomes easier to believe the prophecies of Emmanuel, God with us. To believe that at a certain time in a certain place to certain people a child was born. Not just any child though, however. A child that was unique in history. Not because of the place he was born. Or the color of his eyes. But by the method of his birth. This, as far as we know, is the only instance in Scripture of God orchestrating a pregnancy in which only one party took place. The virgin birth is a unique phenomenon in the Christian Scriptures.

Why is the virgin birth important? To understand that, we need to understand a little bit about, believe it or not, father Abraham. Do you remember the stor of God’s covenant with Abraham? Do you remember this bizarre scene in which God has Abraham cut up animals and lay them 1/2 on the left, 1/2 on the right and then forces Abraham to take a nap? What is the meaning of all this? Well. This is to emphasize that God’s promise with Abraham is entirely one sided. That in no way will Abraham be held up to a standard of behaviour or have as some means of making him worthy to receive the gifts of the covenant. Rather, God himself. Is the one making the promise, and only he is invoked in the covenant ceremony itself. In other words, it is simply an act of Divine grace.. Only God takes that oath. That oath that says if one breaks this covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me. God calls down a curse on Godself if God fails to keep the Divine end of the bargain.

In our Wesleyan theology, we often talk about a synergy between humans and God. That we must act of our own free will to accept the grace of God. And I believe this is the best way of describing what we see in Scriptures in terms of our own salvation. But there are some cases in which we see God clearly acting alone. This is what we call the doctrine of God’s sovereignty: God’s ultimate rule of the universeas expressed in his free actions that take place regardless of the actions, beliefs, thoughts, or any other thing connected with human agency.

Turning back to the birth of Jesus Christ. I believe we can begin to appreciate the importance of God acting alone. God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, brings about a child. Now we all know where babies come from, and so did our ancient ancestors. So it’s not surprising that a child born out of wedlock in a Jewish village some 2000 years ago caused something of a scandal. Some believed that Mary had an affair, or was raped, or otherwise compromised her relationship with Joseph. Still others believed this was just a mere cover story to explain the odd behavior of this child. We know different, however. We know that Jesus had to be born in such a way. Not only to fulfill prophecy, but to be the agent, the ransomer, the rescuer of humanity. As St. Anselm of Canterbury noted over 1000 years ago if God did not enter into our fleshly struggle, he could not save us. It was only as a human that God could save the world. It was only in human flesh that God could redeem humanity. As the statement goes: That which is not assumed, is not saved. Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross,we have been pardoned, cleansed, freed from sin. This message does not allow me to go into the details of atonement theory or just precisely what happened on that day at Calvary, so far away in our history. But suffice it to say that because Jesus was born of God and God’s initiative, so too can we be born again by the initiative of God and the Spirit as we cooperate with grace. As Christ died on the cross,so too, in baptism, we die to ourselves, to sin, to selfishness, to shame, to all that would separate us from the love of God revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. And when we come up from the water, we are cleansed, we are free, we are washed clean. And we participate in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is just as if we too have taken our place at the right hand of God the Father. After all. What does it mean to be human other than to rule and reign on behalf of God? That’s what imagine God truly means after all.

But there is a tension in the story, is there not? On the one hand, there is this boy. The simple country carpenter’s son who follows in his father’s footsteps? Emulating his every move. And no, I don’t mean God at this point, I mean Joseph, right? Joseph the Carpenter of Nazareth wasJesus’ earthly father. We don’t know too much about him. He’s found in the Christmas story but then quickly fades from the scene. What did he teach Jesus? How did he contribute to Jesus growing in wisdom? On this side of the grave, we simply won’t know with any certainty. But I believe there is a hint in the pages of the story itself. Joseph is the impetus for Jesus’ own care and protection of the marginalized in his ministry. Think about it, Joseph could have easily humiliated and shamed Mary publicly and gotten out of the task of supporting a child not his own simply by going to the elders of the town and divorcing her. And in Jesus’s ministry he goes out of his way at several points to protect the dignity and reputation of women: the woman at the well, the woman with the costly ointment, and of course, the woman caught in adultery in John 8.

Joseph could have publicly humiliated Mary and divorce her in a spectacle at the town gate. He did not do that. He wanted to set her aside quietly so as not to cause her shame. Joseph showed what it was to die to self and deny oneself, even of the rights that would prove our own honesty, integrity, and virtue. Sometimes being right is simply not enough…Sometimes forgoing one’s rights is the right thing to do.

So what do we do with Jesus growing in wisdom…He’s God in the flesh, how could he no know everything already? I thought God was all-knowing?

At this point we have some work to do. We have to understand something of the character of God and how God in Christ works to save the world. Remember that Jesus truly was and is God in the flesh. But as Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians, Jesus gave up the prerogative to grasp at divine status and instead humbled himself and adopted the posture of a slave to all humanity. He offered his life to the sin of violence, pain, and torture that humanity threw at him at Calvary. In his voluntary submission comes our vindication as we participate in the events of the Passion and Resurrection as members of Christ’s body through baptism.

But contrast this with the picture we get of the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man in Daniel and in Revelation 22. How do we reconcile the pictures of Jesus meek and mild in his ministry and then coming in triumph and great glory at the end of time? Simply put, Jesus comes first as a Lamb and second like a Lion to set the world to rights and execute just judgment upon the world in which injustice, pain, shame, guilt, fear, and all abuses of power and sin are dealth with. Sin and death itself are forever banished from the created order and we dwell with God in a renewed heaven and earth. Love triumphs through humility and at the end we live with the humble Lamb of God who also is the Lion of Judah. Amen.