The Advent name for God is Emmanuel. We sing it over and over in the familiar hymn, “O come, O come, Emmanuel.” The name means “God is with us” and comes to us from the prophet Isaiah. Matthew’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus was a fulfillment of this prophecy, God with us in the flesh, born a human baby, like us in all things. It’s an echo of the more exalted language of the prologue of John’s Gospel, which tells us that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Scripture scholars tell us that the second half of John’s Greek phrase translates literally as “pitched his tent among us.” This was an image that a first-century, semi-nomadic people would understand. In the Old Testament, God’s presence among the people was often described as a messenger or angel of the Lord. But the revelation of the incarnation is that now it is God himself in our midst and one of us. It’s difficult for us to grasp this concept. Perhaps this is why Matthew and Luke make such a point of describing the baby in the manger visited by shepherds, the child receiving gifts from the magi.
—from the book The Peace of Christmas: Quiet Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek
