December 1 / December 2 / December 3
December 4 
Isaiah 7: 13 -14
13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 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 was speaking to a king, King Ahaz, who was in a blind panic. He was supposed to be leading God’s chosen people in a godly way, but all around him, things were going wrong, and he had lost his bearings as a man of God, becoming solely dependent on himself. He gave Ahaz a sign, a sign we have come to know well – the promise of a young woman giving birth to a son who would be God with us. Now you’ve got to remember that Isaiah’s words were in a particular historical situation and they probably came true within a short time, because Ahaz needed a sign then, not hundreds of years later, but at the same time, these words have come to signify also a Christian hope in the promises of God. It is clear that Matthew saw them as a promise of the coming of Christ to a young woman called Mary, in a different time and place.
For me, the most important part of the prophecy is in the name the child will bear – Immanuel – which means God with us. As we look back on the whole story of the life and death of Jesus, it is plain to me that He wasn’t God with us just for a short time, the span of his life, but that in His resurrection, he became God with us, forever.
As we consider the turmoil of the world we inhabit in 2022, surely the time is ripe for us grasp the promise that no matter what is happening around us, God is with us. That doesn’t mean the circumstances of life will get easier, but it does offer the faith and the hope to stand firm in hope.
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