Not Alone
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” — Matthew 1:23
This is a one verse summary, even a one word summary, of the hope we celebrate at Christmas: Immanuel—God with us. This is the hope of the gospel. This is the culmination of the whole story of the Bible. The great hope of Scripture is God’s promise: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33). In Jesus Christ, God became like us in order to be with us.
“Home Alone” tapped into great fears as a kid. Those fears that you’d be forgotten and left alone. While it’s a comedy, the movie plays on some of our greatest fears: does anyone notice me? Will anyone remember me? Am I all alone in this? Eight-year old Kevin outwits Harry and Marv and reunites with his family, but for many, the sense of loneliness is harder to shake than the Wet Bandits. We find that merely being with others can’t overcome these feelings, for often the deepest sense of isolation comes when we are surrounded by others.
The hope of Christmas is that we are not alone. We are not forgotten. God himself became like us in order to be with us. He did not stand at a distance and call us to join him, but he came to us. His love for us was so great that that the immortal took on mortality. The Creator entered into his creation. God became man. At Christmas, we celebrate that the Son of God became fully human so that we could be children of God.
The cradle of Christmas begins Jesus’s movement toward the cross of Calvary. There, Jesus suffered for us—taking on our loneliness and isolation in order to bring us home to God. He was betrayed by one of his closest friends, deserted by his followers, and in the midst of the crucifixion, he felt abandoned by God, crying out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” Jesus entered into the ultimate loneliness of death, so that, ultimately, we would never be alone.
Immanuel. God with us. God became like us and suffered for us, so that we could enjoy life with him forever—both now and forever in the new creation.
