With us all the way

What is Emmanuel anyway? What is “God with us” really all about? I want to talk about that today.

Jesus emptied Himself of His God-ness when He came to earth. That is enough to think about for a while, I can assure you. How did God lay down all that He is as God when He came to earth to be human? It is almost inconceivable. It really is inconceivable for us as humans to imagine.

Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for all humankind and our sin. He took our sin upon Himself and died in our place. The enormity of that kind of love is beyond me. How could He love me so much that He willingly gave His life in my place.

Those two things are incredible. But what I want to talk about today is not the beginning and end of Jesus’ life on earth. I want to talk about the 30 years that Jesus lived in preparation for His little more than 3 years of ministry.

For thirty years Jesus lived an ordinary life. He experienced what we experience. We do not know that much about those years, but we can surmise and make an educated guess.

I believe that Jesus experienced the entire range of human emotions and knew exactly how we feel. Why was this so important? It was vital because Jesus returned to heaven and according to Scripture, He sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us.

God knows everything, but I believe there was one thing could did not know and could not know. He did not know how we feel. So it was that His plan was to send His Son, in fact it was the plan of the Trinity to send Jesus. Why? So that God might fully understand us. God could not understand how we feel. If that had been left that way, it would have left a tiny gap for Satan to drive a wedge into our standing with God.

So Jesus came to earth. He lived an ordinary life and experienced the entire range of human emotion and being. He grew up as a human child, a boy who matured with all of the growth issues of adolescence. He served as an apprentice carpenter, learning to listen and pay attention. No doubt there were illnesses and even tragedies that He witnessed during those three decades of ordinary life.

Emmanuel. God with us. In every way. He feels your pain. He knows your grief. He understands the injustices you have known. He knows the depth of every weight you and I have carried and continue to carry. All that we have suffered, He has suffered. He knows. And He is with us. Even now, He is with us. In every way.

But there is something beyond being with us that makes our relationship with Him so amazing. He sits at the right Hand of God the Father, making intercession for us. He is there, explaining to the Father what we are going through, explaining the depth of our pain, explaining the terrible prejudice that we have known, clarifying our every nuance of feeling and longing and ache of emotion.

Thank God that He is Emmanuel. God with us. In every possible way.