Immanuel

The king's hands are trembling. Messengers have brought terrible news. Two armies have joined together, and they are marching on Jerusalem. The whole city is shaking, the Bible says, like trees in the forest when the wind blows.

The king is Ahaz, a descendant of David, ruling the small kingdom of Judah about seven hundred and thirty years before Jesus. The great empire of Assyria is growing in the east. Two neighbouring kings, Rezin of Aram, from Damascus, and Pekah of Israel, the northern kingdom, want Judah to join them against Assyria. Ahaz won't. So they plan to attack Jerusalem, remove Ahaz, and put their own man on David's throne. God sends the prophet Isaiah to meet Ahaz outside the city, near the water channel, where the king is probably inspecting the water supply for a siege. Isaiah's message is simple. Be careful, keep calm, don't be afraid. These two kings are just smouldering stumps of firewood. Their plan will not stand. But you must trust God. If you will not believe, you will not be established.

Then God speaks to Ahaz again, through Isaiah, with an astonishing offer. “Ask a sign of the Lord your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.” Anything at all. From the deepest place to the highest heaven. God is offering to prove himself. But Ahaz answers, “I won't ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.” It sounds very humble, very religious. But it isn't. The book of Kings tells us that Ahaz had already decided what to do. He was going to send silver and gold to the king of Assyria and beg for his help. He did not want a sign from God, because he did not want to trust God.

Isaiah's voice rises. “Listen now, house of David. Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?” And then he says it. “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Immanuel. It means God with us. Ahaz refused a sign, so God chooses his own. A child. A birth. A name that says God has not abandoned the house of David, even when its king will not trust him.

Isaiah goes on. The child will eat butter and honey when he knows to refuse the evil and choose the good. Before the child is old enough to know right from wrong, the land of the two kings Ahaz fears will be deserted. And that is what happened. Within a few years, Assyria crushed Damascus and much of northern Israel. But the sign meant more than that. Seven centuries later, an angel came to a carpenter named Joseph in Nazareth, whose fiancée Mary was expecting a child that was not his. Matthew tells us all this happened to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Ahaz really did turn to Assyria. Second Kings says he sent silver and gold to Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria, saying, I am your servant and your son. And Assyria's own records agree. An inscription of Tiglath-pileser the Third lists kings who paid him tribute, and among them is Jehoahaz of Judah, the fuller form of the name Ahaz.

Immanuel. You can read it in Isaiah chapter seven, verses ten to sixteen. A frightened king refused God's help, and God gave a sign anyway: God with us. So here is a question to carry with you. When you are afraid, do you turn first to God, or to something else?