The Promise of Immanuel: Isaiah 7:10-17 & Matthew 1:18-25

The community of Proto-Isaiah were living at a time where on the one hand desolation, bleeding of wounds, bruises and sores, cities burnt, injustice and complicity are thriving in their land (Isaiah 1: 7) and the other where we see people’s burnt offerings and incense as an abomination in the sight of God (Isaiah 1:13). This Proto-Isaiah community were about to go into an exile, unto an Assyrian rule, and so fear, hopelessness and uncertainty is all over the place among the residents in Jerusalem and Judah. And into such a context Proto-Isaiah pumps in confidence by offering hope to the community. Isaiah 7:10-17 is one such texts of hope that Proto-Isaiah prophecies with a promise of Immanuel, which is ‘God with us,’ strengthening the community to recognise in all their ups and downs, in all their fears and fragility, and in all their uncertainties, God is journeying with them.

 

In the Matthean text about Jesus’ birth (Matt 1:18-25), Matthew explains the setting that there is stigma and public disgrace attributed for Mother Mary since she is bearing a child without living with Joseph with whom she was engaged. On the other hand, the writer explains that Joseph was trying to play ‘holy’ without exposing Mary to public disgrace and is planning to dismiss Mary quietly. I am not sure what does being ‘righteous’ mean when one is not able to care, support and embrace a partner who being branded by the society to public disgrace and who is struggling in her life with all her vulnerabilities? In such a context, the angel of God appeared to challenge and comfort Joseph to stand by Mary at her difficult situation, for paving the way for the birth of Jesus, the saviour and the Messiah of the world. To celebrate and affirm this Jesus’ birth event, Matthew recalls and retells the Proto-Isaiah’s prophecy from 7:10-17 that a young woman shall bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God with us,’ offering hope and confidence to Joseph, Mary, the first century Jewish audience to whom Matthew is writing his gospel and to all the readers of the text today.

 

The promise of Immanuel unsettles the transcendence of the divine:

Both in Proto-Isaiah and in Matthew’s contexts, the divine was always understood as transcendent, away from the frailties of human suffering, untouched and undisturbed. The promise of Immanuel in both their contexts unsettles the divine of their transcendence and affirms in the immanence of the divine as ‘God with us.’ With the promise of Immanuel, the postcode of God is shifted to be ‘with us’ and ‘among us.’ Advent is a season of waiting, waiting for the Word becoming flesh, afresh, in our contexts. God in Jesus pitching God’s tent and dwelling among the mortals is the fulfilment of such a promise of Immanuel into a reality. The promise of Immanuel is neither a construction of a theoretical abstract nor a wishful thinking about the idea of God, rather is practical and transformative that began with the birth of Jesus Christ, the Saviour and the Messiah. God once for all unsettled from the terrains of transcendence and pitched God’s tent/dwelling as Immanuel forever and ever to be with us and with the creation.

 

The promise of Immanuel challenges us to witness and ‘with-ness in our context today:

The sign of Immanuel was a breath of fresh air to Isaiah and Matthew’s contexts, for they have been awaiting and longing for the divine to be with them offering courage and hope. So, what is the relevance of believing, affirming celebrating the fulfilment of the promise of Immanuel in Jesus Christ today? Perhaps, the call for us is to witness God, the Immanuel by being ‘with’ people in their struggles offering hope and striving for justice and peace.

 

In the context of the cost-of-living crisis skyrocketing, and with the rising poverty and hunger, the promise of Immanuel is witnessed by sharing our resources, by giving up greed, by not wasting food, by not succumbing to the pressures of market which calls us to buy more and more and by advocating for just policies ensuring alleviation of poverty. The promise of Immanuel is witnessed by being ‘with’ people on the margins, in solidarity of them and working with them for justice and liberation.

 

This season of Advent, let us remember people who are subjected to public disgrace due to their identities, of gender, colour, caste, race, religion, region, sexuality, language, and belief. The promise of Immanuel, God with us, can only be real, when we offer unconditional care, love, acceptance, respect, dignity, equality and solidarity with people who are publicly disgraced. If we are using our religion and God to be awful towards others, excluding others, hating others and stigmatising others who do not believe like us, who do not belong where we belong and who do not look like us, then we are a disgrace to the promise of Immanuel, God with us.

 

Love is the only way forward, and ‘with-ness’ is the only witness that we can offer to people and creation in our neighbourhoods. Imagine how this Immanuel is being with us? Despite our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, our Immanuel God always loves us, journeys with us and leads us forever. So, let’s celebrate the fulfilment of the promise of Immanuel in Jesus Christ and let’s live up to the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ more meaningfully, relevant for our time and context. Amen.

 

 

Rev. Dr. Raj Bharat Patta,

United Stockport Circuit, UK.

15th Dec 2022

 

 

Prayer for Ukraine

 

John 2.1-11 - Do whatever Jesus tells

Weddings – Celebrate love with Jesus and his disciples

Party – Dance with Jesus and his disciples

‘Out of hours’ – Listen to mother and act

Wine runs out – Do whatever Jesus tells

Jars with water – Draw from it and share

Wine is tasty – Compliment the host

Miracles – Happen as God works with us

Jesus and his disciples were at Cana attending a wedding party,

Wine runs out; Mother Mary informs Jesus; Jesus’ hour hasn’t come,

Mary instructs to do whatever Jesus tells,

Jesus gets the jars to be filled with water,

Draw from that jar and give it to the steward,

Steward tastes it and finds it to be best,

Questions the groom why do you keep the best to the last?

Out of hours Jesus works; Out of water wine splashes,

Out of faith there is sufficiency; Out of love there is no deficiency

 

 

In times of insufficiency – Do whatever Jesus tells,

In times of merriment – Do whatever Jesus tells,

In times of ‘out of hours’ – Do whatever Jesus tells,

In times of need – Do whatever Jesus tells,

In times of weddings – Do whatever Jesus tells,

Pic credit: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/218424650655321229/

 

Covenantal words 2022

 

Epiphany Pondering

 

Celebrating the Epiphany of the ‘Body’ God: Luke 3:21-22

Epiphany is the manifestation of God to creation in God’s own ways and God’s own terms. God in Jesus Christ ‘who though was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…’ (Phil 2:4-5) is a God who was born in the human body. Jesus was an embodiment of the divine in the human body. The divine, be it in the Ancient near eastern religions or in the Greek philosophical thought, or in the Hebrew Biblical context was understood as someone who was always transcendental, who was beyond the material human flesh, and away from human pain and suffering. In the mystery of Christmas, when God in Jesus was born as a child from a mother’s womb, that news was something which was very radically good news for their times. God was always understood as divine in opposition to earthly, fleshy humans, and was spoken only in terms of the ‘beyond’ to human cognition and body. But Jesus Christ came to pitch God’s tent among the creation as ‘body’ God, God who (be)came in the human body. God in Jesus not only divinised the material creation by his birth in the human body, but also humanised, body-ised the divine. The body of Jesus Christ, becomes the site of hope for the ‘fallen’ human bodies, where life and death find new meaning offering hope to the material bodies. The ‘body’ God identifies with the material creation including the human bodies, specially with those bodies that have been broken, beaten, bruised and buried, to breathe in a breath of fresh life, life in all its fullness.

 

If Jesus’ birth was a celebration of the ‘body’ God in a child, the baptism of Jesus is a celebration of the Spirit who descended upon him in a bodily form of a dove (22v). The Trinitarian God is an em’bod(y)’ied God, who did not shy away to reveal and manifest Godself in the materiality of life, be it a human body or in the body of a dove. What does the incarnation of Jesus Christ in a human body offer to our Christian faith and praxis today? What does the Epiphany or the manifestation of the Spirit of God in a bodily form of a dove inform our Christian witness today?

 

When God has created the creation in the space of God-self, when God chooses to manifest in the materiality of life, the body of a broken/disfigured/disabled human and in the body of a dove, the call for a Christian discipleship is to discern the sparks of the divine in the entire creation, in the public sphere, in the materiality of life, in the bodies of life. Celebrate life in all and among all of God’s creation.

 

Epiphany challenges us to break down the barriers of ‘us’ and ‘them’, for God’s manifestation is to create an inclusive world, where the sacred and the secular, where the spiritual and the material, where the ‘insider’ and the ‘outsider’, and where the local and the stranger find a common home coexisting and cohabiting together in love.

 

Epiphany inspires us to celebrate the divine who comes in the bodily forms of the creation, inviting us to care for the birds, the animals, the flora and the fauna and the entire ecology, for God manifests through God’s creation. In the destruction of the ecology, we are destroying the means and methods of God’s manifestations. With the extinction of a species, are we paving way to the extinction of God’s epiphanies? 

 

Epiphany provokes us to look for the manifestations of God among the sites of the margins. At the baptism of Jesus, the Spirit descended upon him in a bodily form of a wild dove in that wilderness. Why did the Spirit of God not choose a lion (ferocious) or an elephant (strongest) or a giraffe (tallest) or an eagle (who flies to greater heights) or an ostrich (which is a strong bird) but chose to descend in the form of a wild dove? The ‘body’ God’s preferential option is those weak, meek, common, ordinary, simple and the not so important bodies, and so the Spirit in this case chose to descend in the body of a dove. Led by such a Spirit of God, we are invited to explore the divine among the common, ordinary, meek, weak and on the margins, and work with those on the margins for a just and inclusive world.

 

May the epiphany of the ‘body’ God continue to be with us throughout the journeys of our faith, and help us to celebrate the freedom of God’s manifestations in the bodily forms, in the ordinaries and in the matters & materiality of life. Amen.

 

Raj Patta

7th January 2021