O Emmanuel (2)
O Antiphons of Advent • Sermon • Submitted
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In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
L O Emmanuel, our king and our Lord, the anointed for the nations and their Savior:
C Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Introduction
Introduction
In the Name of Jesus, our coming Advent King. Amen.
Today we come to the last of the seven O Antiphons, O Emmanuel.
King Ahaz was surrounded by a ferocious enemy: Rezin, the King of Syria and the son of the king of Israel, of the tribe of Ephraim, came against Judah the southern kingdom of Israel with the attempt to “terrify it, and conquer it.” Whenever evil plots together against the Lord, there will be hell to pay, literally, in the end.
Ahaz is terrified. He does not have the military might to thwart their efforts. He does not have the intel to know their wickedly devised plan, and the fake news of the day was that Judah would be plundered and fall into their evil grasp.
But the Lord God had something else in mind. So the Lord sends Isaiah to Ahaz to assure him that these evil plans of this wicked party and alliance will not prevail. God says:
thus says the Lord God:
“ ‘It shall not stand,
and it shall not come to pass.
For the head of Syria is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin.
And within sixty-five years
Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.
And the head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
If you are not firm in faith,
you will not be firm at all.’ ”
Good news. But Ahaz’ eyes are telling him a different story. He lifts his eyes to the hills. That’s not a good thing. The hills are not where your help comes from. That’s where the surrounding enemy is. Ahaz’ help and your help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, who decimates the armies and bandits of the devil that hide in the hills, ready to take you out at a moment’s notice.
So Isaiah tells Ahaz to ask for a sign— as high as heaven or as deep as death from God to show that His Word is true.
Ahaz won’t ask. He won’t “put YHWH to the test.” This angers God. So God Himself gives Ahaz the sign:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
Strange words indeed.
Prophecy is like mountains. From a distance, they all look like one mountain. But as one draws nearer to a mountain, the foothills become evident. They are separated out from the the view of the mountains that one saw from a distance. In the same way, prophecy often has multiple fulfillments.
Most conservative scholars believe that there must have been an immediate fulfillment by God to demonstrate to Ahaz that he would not fall. In this case, it would be a young woman who would have a baby named Immanuel. There can be no other explanation. But the immediate fulfillment was penultimate. The ultimate fulfillment to which Isaiah points begins its fulfillment in today’s Gospel.
The Angel Gabriel comes to Mary, the virgin, pledged to be married to Joseph, but undefiled. Gabriel appears to Mary telling her that she is highly favored above all women, and that the Lord God had chosen her to be the mother of Jesus— the very Son of the Most High God, who would save His people from their sins. Our guarantee that the devil and his minions, lurking in the hills will be plundered by the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The Word Becomes Flesh
The Word Becomes Flesh
And so, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, , to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as His children.
Immanuel literally means “With Us God” or, in English “God with Us.”
Therein is the miracle of the incarnation of Jesus. It is not the popular view of “Us with God” as if we do something, deserve something, or win something to bring God to our level. That is the way of the world and the deceit of the devil.
In His Gospel John says of this Word of God, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” The Greek word for “dwelt” is the word for the Tabernacle, the same tabernacle of which God speaks to Nathan in our Old Testament Lesson. The tabernacle that was set up amid the people of Israel in the Wilderness. It would finally find its home in Solomon’s Temple.
Jesus comes into our midst in this wilderness, that Tabernacle of God in our midst, bearing the very presence of God. The tabernacle that was destroyed. The tablets of the Law went down with Him. And as Jesus both fulfilled that Law on the Tablets for you and me, making us holy, and being crushed for our iniquities paying the eternal price that God demanded on our heads, He is our Immanuel. He dwells with us in this wilderness of sin, suffering, death and destruction, with the promise that the Temple will be built, that eternal Temple in heaven where the Lamb reigns on His throne. The promised land of heaven stands ever before you.
The Anointed for the Nations and their Savior
The Anointed for the Nations and their Savior
Our O Antiphon today is perfect. It bears the same message as the Angel bears to Mary. Jesus is not only God With Us, but He is the Anointed One for the Nations. In Hebrew the word “Anointed” is MESSIAH. In Greek it is CHRIST.
Just as Mary is the fulfillment of Eve, and a type of the Church, Jesus is the long awaited Messiah who saves us. The one who was promised in the sin-destroyed Garden to naked Adam and Eve. He arrives. He is of Adam and Eve’s Seed, that 17 year old girl who is visited by Gabriel in her chamber. She is puzzled. “How can this be since I am a virgin
And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
She is visited by an angel. She is given incomprehensible news. She is not married. She is engaged and now pregnant, and not with the child of her husband to be. That means she could be stoned. She would be shamed for sure. Another miracle that takes place in that chamber is that she says:
And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
God with US
God with US
This same Jesus, born to the Virgin Mary, has come to save us. He has done just that. The O Antiphon is a cry that He will save us in the end. That He is both Lord and God. He has promised He will. Therefore, rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel.