Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 34 · February 3
God With Us
“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Follow that name backwards, because it has a long history before it reaches a manger.
It starts with a refusal. Moses has been offered an angel to lead Israel up from Sinai and will not take the substitute: If thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. Then the reason, which is identity. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? Everything that makes Israel Israel is one fact about who walks with them.
Isaiah then gives the name to a king who has just refused a sign. Ahaz is told to ask for one, in the depth, or in the height above, and answers with false piety: I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. He gets the sign regardless, and the name in it is Immanuel. A chapter later, with an invading army described as water up to the neck, Isaiah says it to the invaders: speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. The name has teeth, and it was first spoken over people who did not want it.
Matthew then does something almost nobody notices. They shall call his name Emmanuel, he writes, and in his Gospel nobody ever does. Two verses earlier the instruction is thou shalt call his name JESUS, and Joseph does exactly that. Emmanuel is a description of what the child is, printed once, at the door of the book.
And it is the last thing John hears at the end of the Bible: Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.
Moses would not go without it. Ahaz did not want it. It is open today on the same terms it was offered on then. You are welcome to have him near you before anything about your situation improves.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 34 is Before You Began (Jeremiah 1:5).