For many of us, the meaning of Jesus’ name Emmanuel, God with us, is one of our favorite parts of the Christmas story. That the incarnate Son of the God, the Maker of the Universe, would come to earth in flesh to dwell (John 1:14)—literally “tabernacle”—with us both blows our minds and melts our hearts.

In reading Ian Provan’s Seriously Dangerous Religion: What The Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters, these thoughts about the meaning of Emmanuel were prominent as I read his observations on the story of Jacob’s dream:

• “The story of Jacob… is a story of God’s grace in rescuing Jacob—grace that is explicitly signaled in Genesis 28:10-22. Here in a dream, Jacob sees a ziggurat stairway (often unhelpfully referred to as a ‘ladder’) connecting earth and heaven. He observes God’s servants (‘angels’) coming and going on this stairway to heaven, occupying themselves with the business of God. The main interpretive question in this story is where God is to be found. Does the beginning of verse 13 tell us that Jacob sees the LORD standing above ‘it’ (the stairway)? … In this case, God is in heaven ready to receive the angels who report back to him after patrolling the earth…. However, the particular combination of Hebrew verb and preposition here… usually means in the Old Testament ‘to stand beside.’ It never means specifically ‘to stand above.’ Most likely, then, God is standing not above the ladder but ‘beside him’ (Jacob, as the NIV footnote allows). The story, then, is not about the majesty of God who sits in the heavens but about the love of a God who descends the stairway to be with Jacob where he is—about a God who looks for friendship with Jacob in the midst of his current circumstances. Before Jacob turns away from wrongdoing in his life and before he has even the faintest notion that his whole life journey lies in the hand of God , God is found with Jacob, where he is….” (184-185)
• [In Islam,] “Allah does not seek out the lost and redeem them; he does not ‘descend the ziggurat’ to meet with his people even before they turn to him; he does not take the initiative to deal constructively with their sins… The Qur’an never states that God loves someone who has not already loved him first—never implies that God loves someone who has not already turned toward righteousness….” (189)
• “In biblical faith, right relating to God is possible only because God, in his love, makes it so.” (190)

And that is the story of the incarnation, isn’t it?! God becoming man, descending the ladder to where we are. Taking initiative to deal with our sins constructively. Making it possible for us to be rightly related to God.

Thanks be to God and Merry Christmas, dear friends!