Immanuel

Monday December 24th, Isaiah 7: "Then listen to this, government of David! It's bad enough that you make people tired with your pious, timid hypocrisies, but now you're making God tired. So the Master is going to give you a sign anyway. Watch for this: A girl who is presently a virgin will get pregnant. She'll bear a son and name him Immanuel (God-With-Us). There had been miraculous births in the Old Testament, and they had been, like with Sarah, accompanied with the laughter of joy and disbelief from someone unable to have children. Not this time, something new was happening, something that was going to shake up the world. A young maiden would conceive and bear a son and name him Immanuel, God with us. This would be a new beginning for humanity, and new beginning for creation, and new beginning for our relationship with the creator. This new beginning would be called, God with us. This is not the God with us in the form of altars, idols, circumcision, or worship in a specific place, but God in you, God in me, God in Joe and Mary down the street, and God in those we don’t know and even God in those we do know and call our enemy. The call is no longer to find God up in heaven somewhere, but rather God in one another and therefore to begin to treat one another as the children of God and in doing so, our brothers and sisters.