Our

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Christ by highest heaven adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord,
Late in time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!
Hail the incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus! Our Immanuel here! —Hymn for Christmas Day (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing)

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¹⁸ This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

²⁰ As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

²² All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:

²³ “Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’” —Matthew 1:18-23

¹⁴ All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). —Isaiah 7:14

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Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear;

Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall be born for thee, O Israel! —O Come O Come Emmanuel (Neale 1851 Translation)

• What does it mean that Jesus is

?
•

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is a devoted, grace-filled love. It is an attachment kind of love, that keeps on loving, forgiving, and persisting in relationships. It’s the kind of love that someone demonstrates when they’re keeping a promise and when a desire to be loyal to their promise motivates them to go above and beyond and be super generous more than what you would expect.
• The main predisposition of God’s heart for us is not

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, it is

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.

⁷ Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. ⁸ But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. ¹⁰ This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. ¹² No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

¹³ And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. ¹⁴ Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. ¹⁶ We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. —1 John 4:7-16

• The Good News of Immanuel is not just that God entered into humanity at

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in history, but rather through what Christ has done, His presence (The Helper/Holy Spirit) is able to now live

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References:

A Room Called Remember by Frederick Buechner
A Theology of the Ordinary by Julie Canlis