✠ Psalmody: Isaiah 45:8a;Psalm 19:1;24:7, 3-4a;145:18, 21;Isaiah 35:4b;7:14b
✠ Lection: Isaiah 2:2-5;Isaiah 7:10-15;Luke 1:26-38a
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
There is much that is impossible with God, that is, from our perspective, meaning He is not limited as we are, therefore it is impossible with God that we know Him fully. He is infinite. He is pure. He is holy; all things that we are not. It is impossible for us to see into the utter depths of Who He is and what He has done, is doing, and will do. Thanks be to God that we don’t need to. He has given us plenty of most-certain things, joyful and fulfilling glimpses into His majesty and glory, for us in turn to need not worry about the known or even the unknown. We need only Him to be God and us to fear, love, and trust in Him above all things as He works all things for our good. He has revealed much to us about Himself and yet there’s infinitely more that we will never know. He is God and we are not. And this is a good thing, for we’ll simply be blessed unto all eternity coming to know more and more about how good our God really is.
Here in time, He has revealed to us many Names by which we know Him, by which we are given a glimpse of His glory; names that reveal parts of that infinite truth about Him. By giving us these Names, He graciously allows us to know Who He is, so that we may believe what we hear about Him and call upon Him accordingly. Knowing someone’s name is to possess the ability to call upon the person in accordance with Who He is. Knowing someone’s name, to a certain extent, is to possess a level of privilege, benefit, or authority in the relationship with that person, even if it’s simply by being able to use it to get the person’s attention. It is no small matter that the Creator of all things has given to us divine Names to think upon, to call upon, that reveal to us His might, His intention, His love, and has given us those Names that we make use of them. He does not condescend Himself to us in His entirety, and thus cease to be God, for St. John tells us in Revelation 19 that he saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. For God to be Highest above all, He must retain a Name for Himself that only He knows, for He alone is God and no one has full authority to all of Him. But tonight, we are not concerned about not knowing that Name, but the ones revealed to us by God through the prophet Isaiah and the angel Gabriel.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel, meaning God with us. This is a cozy thought, for anyone who would dare to have any true hope, would he not desire that hope to be certain by having God with us to tend to our needs, to defend us against all danger, to direct our feet in the way of peace? Indeed, this is true. But if the one true God does not prepare the way before Him, then His presence among us is destructive, for a holy God cannot dwell among an unholy people without one giving way to the other as the two can never coexist. Only by faithful hope do we desire God to be with us. Only by consciences informed and sanctified by Him and His Word do we understand that it is our sin that robbed us of this, beginning with the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Only by the Holy One instituting holy means of reconciliation by His doing can sinful man exist in the presence of God with us. It was He Who gave promise of the Seed to come to crush the serpent’s head. It was He Who gave instructions for the sacrificial altar and all the offerings that pointed ahead to the once-for-all One Sacrifice to come. It was He Who, by all that He put into place, was able to be God with us as He dwelt in His glory between the cherubim in the Holiest Place, the Holy of Holies, which was in the midst of an unclean people. He did not remain far off as our sin had caused, but came to be among His people, with us, in the way of the temple in preparation for the fullness yet to be in the virgin birth in Bethlehem. God with us in the temple built with hands served to prepare us for God with us in the temple of His own flesh, born of Mary, as such Body and Blood blesses us this Ember night.
Thus, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. Gabriel revealed to her, by God’s gracious direction, three names by which this miracle child would be called; Names in which we are to joyfully take to heart. The two latter ones are very similar and carry the weight of Who was to coming to be born into a dark world that did not know Him. He will be called the Son of the Highest…and that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. He Who would not be kept from dwelling among His people, to be God with us, was the very One Who would be coming in the fullness of the Godhead dwelling now bodily. His glory would no longer be veiled by the curtain of the temple, but by His own human flesh, the same as that into which you were born, yet He without sin; veiled even further for you now in humble elements. It is no trifle matter that the Son of God became a man. He Who demanded sacrifices of old was coming to be the Sacrifice that the whole world needed, for it was impossible for any fallen man to die for the sins of himself or another. It had to be God and Man together in the One Person of Christ. The Lord had to take on flesh so that the power of the Highest could rescue all those who dwelt in its fallenness.
This brings us to the Name given to Him for us to confess; the Name that is above all names; the Name to which every knee will bow and every tongue confess, because He Who bears the Name JESUS is worthy of all praise. Gabriel said to Mary, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS.” He was to be Mary’s Son, born of the flesh of those He created on the sixth day, those who rebelled and sinned against Him, those whom He would not leave in the grasp of death. He was the Son of God, also. Light of Light sent forth with the sweet Gospel in the Name He would bear in His incarnation: JESUS. Yahweh saves, for with God, from His perspective, from His holy intent and purpose, nothing will be impossible, especially eternal salvation. A holy God dwelling among an unholy people…He has done. The Creator of the Stars and Night, the King of the Universe becoming one of us…He has done. The One Who knew no sin becoming sin for us so that we may not die but live forevermore…He has done. Jesus. Yahweh saves, showing us every second of everyday that He is faithful and trustworthy with our very souls. If He has done our impossible by stepping down from heaven to save us from that which threatened our eternal existence, how much more is He capable of taking care of us in all the other things that we could possibly need? Infinitely so, beloved, for His very Names remind us of the glorious truth of this glorious Savior: Immanuel. Son of the Highest. Son of God. Jesus. God Himself with you, for you.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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