God with us
by Greg Fowler
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Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you and you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me to you (Zechariah 2:11).
Read Zechariah 2:10–13
I love the Christmas story so much! It is so familiar, but I can never truly comprehend how profound it is: a crowded town, a humble stable, the gentle lowing of cattle. A young mother wraps her newborn son in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger. It is the Nativity story, a picture of profound intimacy. The God who spoke galaxies into existence, the one whom the heavens cannot contain, draws near in the soft, dependent flesh of a baby.
It is the stunning reality prophesied centuries earlier. Through the prophet Zechariah, God declared, ‘Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people. I will live among you’ (Zechariah 2:11). The promise was not merely of a distant God offering rules and rituals, but of God himself taking up residence with his people. The manger in Bethlehem is the breathtaking fulfilment of that promise. The baby named Jesus, which means ‘The Lord saves’, is the one sent by God to live with humanity.
But here’s the thing. God did something the prophet could not have foreseen. God himself came to live with us. He is ‘Immanuel’, God with us. Not God watching from a distance, but God sharing our air, our hunger, our joys and our sorrows. He walked our dusty roads, felt the sting of rejection and wept at the grave of a friend. In Jesus, the divine presence has a human face and human hands.
As believers, we are different. We are changed. Since God has drawn near in Christ, we are never alone in our struggles, grief or confusion. His presence sanctifies our ordinary moments and gives us hope in our deepest pain. The same God who promised to dwell with his people now delivers on that promise by living in us today. He is not a far-off idea, but a close companion. One day, I hope I truly understand this glorious truth: God is with us.
Father God, thank you for sending Jesus. Please help us to understand the mystery of how you entered our world and live with us each day. Open our hearts, enlighten our minds and fill us with the joy that comes with communing with Jesus. Amen.
Pastor Greg lives in beautiful Redland Bay with his wife, Connie, where they enjoy the beaches, weather and outdoor lifestyle of south Brisbane. He serves as the college pastor at Faith Lutheran College, Redlands.
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