The Meaning of "Emmanuel"

Tonight at church we sang, as we do every Christmas Eve, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." But it was different this year, and I realized from now on it will be different every year than it was in years before.

The song has been forever changed for me by a boy I taught last year, whose name was a version (very differently spelled) of "Emmanuel." He was a child of few words (particularly few words spoken to me), but he did once tell me what I had already known, if not fully understood -- that his name means, "God with us." Now, if there was ever a child who made you doubt that God could be with us, it was this kid. The whole time I taught him, I kept thinking that we'd hit rock bottom; the whole time I taught him, it turned out we hadn't. Every day felt like it got worse and worse, until one day he was gone. He left school and moved away, fleeing a host of problems only to run into new ones. He's come back to the neighborhood since then; I've heard reports and I've even seen him walking down the street, but I've never gotten to speak to him. I don't know if I ever will.

This kid broke my heart; it killed me that I never felt like I could reach him, and it killed me to see his situation get worse and worse, largely from his own doing. And the whole year as I grieved over him, his words echoed in my head: "It means, 'God with us.'" How could a child with such a promising name be headed in a direction with so little promise?

Time and distance heal some wounds, or at the very least give perspective. I've gotten to the point where I can pray for this boy without despairing, and I do. But this year as I sang the words, I found myself thinking of him again, and rather than doubting and grieving, I was empathizing. I am starting (very slowly) to see that his situation is really my situation. I am just as hopeless as the boy with the hope-filled name. All throughout the fall and winter, I've struggled with -- ok, let's be honest, given in to -- a sense of despair over my own sin. I've realized the things I'm repenting of this year are, in a lot of ways, the things I was repenting of last year, and the year before, and the year before. Different circumstances, same sin. I am a control freak, and every day I have to face at least 49 things out of my control (they're called teenagers), and usually many more than that. Rather than trusting Jesus, I rebel against my own weakness and need for him. I try to fix everything on my own, and the less that works, the more embittered I become. The more embittered I become, the less I want to turn to God and trust him, and so the cycle continues. And once I finally realize I'm in that cycle, I feel like I can't come back. It's too late; God can't love me; I've done it again. Even worse, I realize that I will do it again. Why, given my complete lack of a promising track record, would God choose me?

By God's grace, I am learning -- maybe for the 1st time, maybe for the 100th -- that I have the same reason to hope that the child named Emmanuel has. Emmanuel: God with us. Not us with God, not God waiting for us, but God with us. If God did not come down to me of his own accord, I certainly would not have made it to him. And if God did not promise to be with me, right now, in my sin and despair and "you did that again?!"-ness, than I would have no hope. I've blown it just as many times as that kid, or probably more because I've had more years of life to mess up. God with us does not mean it will all be pretty; the manger was not. God with us does not mean it will all make sense; his disciples were totally perplexed when the man they thought would be king was marched off to his death. God with us means he is present in the realness of humanity -- and he knows just how real my sin is, more than I can. And still he came, and comes, and will come.

Tonight, there may be still be visions of sugarplums (ok, or of my perfect life plan that works out on my timetable) dancing through my head, but in the midst of that I am stopping to be awed and humbled and thankful for the first child named Emmanuel, and the child who has taught me more than he could ever know about his namesake.

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him, 'Immanuel,' which means 'God with us.'" --Matthew 1:23