Emmanuel is two words in Hebrew, Immanu (“with us”) and El (“God”). This child is the “with-us-God” or, as we say in better English, “God with us.”
Ages before this God-with-us boy was born, he was already with his people, but not in a flesh-and-blood sort of way. He told the patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob, “I am with you” (Gen. 26:24; 28:15). Before he sent Moses into Egypt, he said from the burning bush, “I will be with you” (Exod. 3:12). He repeated this promise to Joshua (Deut. 31:23) and others.
It’s one thing for God to be with us as God, but it’s on a whole different level for God to be with us as a fellow human being who spent forty weeks in utero, learned how to crawl then walk, suffered through puberty, and eventually faced the firing squad of Roman crucifiers. We have that God.
And that human God, Jesus of Nazareth, is also our king and Lord. Just consider what that means. Having friends is good. They can be there for us, in good times and bad times. We can lean on them and seek their advice. But our regular friends, well, they have their limitations. They have their own problems, of course, and their own lives, so they can’t be there for us 24/7. Nor can they, if necessary, move heaven and earth to do something for us.
Our flesh-and-blood God can. He is king. He is Lord. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. And all that authority he exercises for us, his friends, his brothers, his sisters, at whose side he always sticks close.
Just imagine if you had the phone number of the most powerful person in the world, could call or text him anytime, ask him to help you, no matter what, and he would do it in a heartbeat. What we have in Jesus makes that seem like child’s play. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. He is King of all nations. He is Lord of all.
Most importantly, he is your Emmanuel, the God with you and the God for you.
We have a God who knows intimately what it is to feel a heart breaking, hot tears running down his cheeks, and blood flowing from gaping wounds. He knows what it’s like to be both loved and hated, as well as betrayed. There is no human emotion foreign to his experience. There is no human need that he has not felt pressing into his soul.
Jesus is our fully divine and fully human God. The image-maker made into the image. The creator become creature.
If you’ve ever wondered just how far the Lord of heaven and earth would go to make sure you were his own, peer down into the manger and look up onto the cross.
