1) By being with them, associating his purity with their evil. Have you ever read through the first sixteen verses of the New Testament? It is Matthew’s genealogy and repays reading, if you know the Old Testament. Notice especially the women who are mentioned—Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba—all women of the worst of reputations, and Ruth, no Jew at all. Somehow these are the people who have to be brought in, and that reflects the whole of the mission, and the character of Jesus. For he was the friend of publicans and sinners. He was the shepherd of the lost sheep and the doctor of the sick. Jesus healed people’s bodies at a distance, but he did not heal their souls that way. It was when people like Levi and Zacchaeus opened their homes to him that they became changed persons.
2) By his power to forgive. Jesus knew that the most terrible consequence of sin was the barrier it erected between humankind and God, its breaking down of the relationship between them. Not that there was ever much to break down, because human beings had been trying to come to God by the wrong road; trying to earn his favor by the good things he did. But this attempt is constantly vitiated by the fact of sin, so that what Jesus did, in effect, was to create a new relationship between God and human beings, and our relationship to God exists only in Him. He is our righteousness and we have no other. So the jolly feasts with sinners could indeed become a holy communion, because Jesus bore them up to the presence of God. He was with them, but he was not one of them, and because he was different, and came from above he was able to forgive; to give us a new start, a new relationship to God, the life of sonship.
3) By his victory over the power of evil. Look again at the genealogy and see how Matthew splits it up into three sections. This is not coincidence, it is a philosophy of history. It means that for Matthew, the coming of Christ, is the inauguration of a new era, different from all that preceded this, in the fact of the presence of the Kingdom, the mighty rule of God. God manifests his power in overcoming the power of evil and setting up his own kingdom in the hearts of human beings. This means the defeat of sin, which on its own ground was invincible. “Give me somewhere to stand,” says Archimedes, “and I will move the world.” He meant that if, by a miracle, he could stand outside the world, he could exert force enough to move it. That is what the coming of Jesus means—power from outside the world applied inside it, power that was able to conquer sin and death in Jesus and those who believe in him. I have related all this to the time of Jesus himself, but he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And what he did for sinful persons in the past he can do for you.5
APPLICATION
When people gave names, they looked backward as well as forward, and we may look too at the two Joshua’s of the Old Testament. One was the triumphant leader of a young and vigorous people whom he led into their promised land with glory and daring exploits. The other comes much later after a long and weary history, strained with sin and suffering. And he is not a soldier, but a priest, sacrificing, atoning for his people, sanctifying them.
And Jesus is both, so that whether you stand with a big life’s history in front of you, or with a tale of failure and defeat behind, he is the one who can save you from sin, and save you into the glory of his Kingdom. On one occasion, a friend, Sir Henry Leeland found Michael Faraday in tears, with his head bent over an open Bible. “I fear you are feeling unwell,” he said. “No,” answered Faraday, “it’s not that, but why O why will not people believe the blessed truths here revealed?”6
Pages from C. K. Barrett’s notebook
4. Editor’s Note: There are many sermons composed in the 1930s as CKB began to preach regularly that he did not use thereafter, perhaps because he thought they could stand improvement or replacement. Whatever the case, this was not one of them for he used it in various places for over forty years. In general, I have followed his own implicit evaluation of those very early sermons, and presented here those that he felt worthwhile to use across many decades.
5. Editor’s Note: Here in pencil, he writes the name Lew Batchelor, about whom the story is told in another sermon in this volume. Presumably, he repeated that story here, at least in some of the uses of this sermon.
6. Editor’s Note: This illustration is crossed out in pencil, so presumably it was not used in later versions of the preaching of this sermon.
“IMMANUEL”—Matthew 1.22–23
[Preached twenty-seven times from 12/25/56 at Langley Park to 12/11/05 at Bowburn]
All that there is to say this morning is contained in the one word—Immanuel. It is one word when it stands as a proper name, but it is two words in Hebrew which it takes four words in English to translate—”With us is God.” Short enough, but it means everything. It always has meant everything, once humankind has learned to understand it.
Years ago, before the war, I read a story which has always stuck in my mind. The sorrows of China, of the Church in China, have gone on for a long time. It was in October 1934 that the two men, Hazmann and Bosshardt were captured by the Rio Army. One of them was to spend thirteen the other nineteen months in captivity. Christmas Day 1934 found them cold and cheerless, and kept not in solitary but in silent confinement. There was nothing to do but sit in the cold room all day and wait for their three square meals of rice and vegetables. They were not allowed to speak. Then Bosshardt had an idea. He began to play with the straw that littered the ground, spelling out letters for his friend to see—IMMANUEL. The two men looked at each other with a glow of comfort and hope. The whole scene was changed into one of joy. “If God be for us, who can be against us” (Bosshardt). Immanuel, not as a charm, or a magic spell, or an Open Sesame to open prison doors, but as a meaningful word to those who understood—it does mean everything. But to be more precise—what does it mean? Let me say three things about it. First, negatively, it does not mean God’s approval of all we do.
GOD’S APPROVAL OF ALL WE DO
That God should be with us does not mean that he will do all the things we do. I well remember the occasion when I had the opportunity to attend service in John Calvin’s own church in Geneva. It is perched up on a rock above the lake, in a situation not unlike that of Durham Cathedral, but it was a service and a preaching like our own that was conducted there. The sermon was on the last words of Matthew—“Lo I am with you always.” And one of the preacher’s points was this—you must not suppose that promised presence is simply a comforting and comfortable thing. It is, he said, an accusing presence. And so it is. People were not long in the presence of Christ before they found that out. He didn’t strengthen, or browbeat them. As often as not, he did not need to speak a word. Not a word to Peter, but the man was on his knees saying “Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” In the presence of the woman taken in adultery, it was only “Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone.” It is not what is said, it is the man who speaks.
Immanuel, with us is God. That is what he is like, and that is the sort of effect he will have. This is not the end of the story, but it is a chapter we are prone to skip, and one therefore that ought to be emphasized sometimes. He attends our Christmas feasts like Banquo’s ghost—for you will remember Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Macbeth himself had just had Banquo murdered, but when he came to feast with his friends the ghost of Banquo, visible to him alone, is there in his place. And the feast is ruined for, without speaking, Banquo’s ghost accuses, “Thou cannot not say I did it! Never shake thy gory locks at me!”
I suspect that