With Us

“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

We are entering the season of Advent, a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus on Christmas. When the God of the universe took on limited human form and stepped into extraordinarily ordinary circumstances. Coming as Immanuel, God with us.

He didn’t come to us because we deserved Him. He came because He loved us.

But in order to come, He embraced a life of difficulty right from the start. With no room in the inn, He spent His first earthly night in a stable. From there He became a refugee in Egypt, having fled from King Herod’s plot to kill Him. And His life will end in persecution, rejection, pain, and death.

All on our behalf. To be with us.

Perhaps this Christmas season we feel a greater need for Immanuel than ever before. Intellectually, we have always known that we need God with us, but in this year of pandemic we feel it more acutely as we face fear, isolation, and a wide range of difficulties unique to our life situations.

But we can find comfort in knowing that we are not alone. There is no difficulty we could ever face that He has not already walked through Himself. And He is with us now as Lord and Guide and Friend. Our Immanuel.