{"id":1201,"date":"2018-12-19T08:03:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T13:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbaralardinais:8888\/immanuel\/"},"modified":"2019-01-02T10:30:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T15:30:25","slug":"immanuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hannahscupboard.com\/immanuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Immanuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immanuel means \u201cGod with us.\u201d Matthew 1:23 says; \u201cBehold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,\u201d which is translated, \u201cGod with us.\u201d<\/strong> Matthew is quoting the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah 7:14 which says; \u201cTherefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Isaiah spoke those words about 700 years before the birth of Christ he probably didn’t understand what he was really saying; he just wrote what the Holy Spirit inspired. No one who read it understood it either. That’s why when Jesus finally showed up, a baby born to Mary and Joseph (but conceived by the Holy Spirit) the whole nation of Israel wasn’t on the edge of its seat to receive and accept him.<\/p>\n

Now we are on the other side of the Incarnation\u2014God made man. The idea that God would come to dwell with us may be unthinkable so we dismiss it, or, we have heard it so many times it has lost all meaning and we dismiss it still. Who could come up with such an idea? Only God. His idea, his plan. Also–his implementation since it would have to be his miracle that we could never implement.<\/p>\n

Whenever I think about this unthinkable miracle I think about a story written by an unknown author but made famous by radio personality, Paul Harvey. He liked to tell it at Christmas time and I’m telling it here because it helps our minds understand \u201cwhy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Man and the Birds<\/h2>\n

Now the man to whom I’m going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn’t make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man. “I’m truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, “but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve.” He said he’d feel like a hypocrite. That he’d much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched breadcrumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide-open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the breadcrumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.<\/em><\/p>\n

And then, he realized, that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. “If only I could be a bird,” he thought to himself, “and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safety … to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.”<\/em><\/p>\n

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells – Adeste Fidelis – listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now continue your study with Messiah<\/a> or another of the Names of God<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Immanuel means \u201cGod with us.\u201d Matthew 1:23 says; \u201cBehold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,\u201d which is translated, \u201cGod with us.\u201d Matthew is quoting the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah 7:14 which says; \u201cTherefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nImmanuel - Hannah's Cupboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hannahscupboard.com\/immanuel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Immanuel - Hannah's Cupboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Immanuel means \u201cGod with us.\u201d Matthew 1:23 says; 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