ChristmasReading2022A - Flipbook - Page 22
Immanuel
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive
and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him
Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). Ma hew 1:23
Some years ago, I ran across this book review by Garrison Keillor of
Julian Barnes’ book Nothing To Be Frightened Of. In the review are
these words:
“I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him,” the book begins. Julian Barnes,
an atheist turned agnos c, has decided at the age of sixty-two to
address his fear of death—why should an agnos c fear death who has
no faith in an a erlife? How can you be frightened of Nothing? On this
simple ques ons Barnes has hung an elegant memoir and medita on,
a deep seismic tremor of a book that keeps rumbling and grumbling in
the mind for weeks therea er. Thanatophobia is a fact of his life—he
thinks about death daily and some mes at night is “roared awake” and
“pitched from sleep into darkness, panic and a vicious awareness that
this is a rented world…awake, alone, u erly alone, bea ng pillow with
st and shou ng ‘Oh no, Oh No, OH NO’ in an endless wail.” (Garrison
Keillor, New York Times Sunday Book Review, “Dying of the Light”,
October 03, 2008)
“Stripped of the Chris an narra ve,”
Love has a
Keillor con nues, “we gaze out on a
landscape that, while fascina ng,
name: Immanuel.
o ers nothing that one could call
Hope.” That is something we can all
agree on. Part of the Chris an
narra ve is the story of a birth. In par cular the birth of a long awaited
Messiah.
ti
tt
ti
fi
ti
tt
tt
ti
ti
ti
ti
ti
ft
ti
ti
ti
ft
ti
ti
ti
ti
ti
One of the original disciples, the re red tax-collector Ma hew, writes
that all the par culars of Jesus’ birth were the ful llment of Scripture
and that Jesus is Immanuel—which means, “God with us.”
ff
fi
DAY Ten: December 07 - Wednesday