Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
Matthew 1: 22-23 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

We are living in a time when the meaning of Immanuel does not make any sense to many people. We are living in a time where philosophically, you can believe anything, so long as you do not claim it to be true. Morally, you can practice anything, so long as you do not claim that it is a “better” way. Religiously, you can hold to anything, so long as you do not bring Jesus Christ into it (Zacharias, 2000, pg. 8). Our generation would remember us as a generation that lives out of “emotions”. It’s a generation that makes decisions depending on the status of their feelings or “mood”. Many are responding to the God out of their mood, high and low in their response to God. They want God who would love them but not interfere with their choices. For many repentance means feeling bad about their act, shade tears or show sympathy but never really understand the truth about “what it means to be free”. A mood can be a dangerous state of mind, because it can crush reason under the weight of feeling. (Zacharias, 2000 pg. 8), this also means these emotional ups and down or in/out has also affecting our ability to reason and stand firm on the TRUTH, walk persistently on the WAY and have the LIFE in abundance.
The angle’s declaration of Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men! Lk 2:14 is fulfillment of prophesy about coming of the Messiah. The declaration is the declaration of new era for humanity. In Greek the word of peace is Irene in Hebrew it is Shalom. The word “shalom” conveys the blessings for God’s people associated with the coming of the Messiah, namely justice, peace, fruitfulness and harmony in creation – all gifts of God
Jesus did not come into the world to found a Church but to proclaim a Kingdom – the two being by no means the same thing. Malcolm Muggeridge.

As we gaze at the life, message and mission of our Savior, it is all about the good news of Kingdom of God or the manifestation of “Shalom”. Jesus lived and everyone can now identify with God. Someone whose mother had experienced fear of rejection of the society while she was pregnant with him/her can say Immanuel because Jesus experienced this. Someone who was threatened to be killed in the childhood due to their sex, color or race can say Immanuel because Jesus knows what it means. The poor could say Immanuel, because Jesus was born in poor family, his parents offered a pair of pigeon that was lowest of the offering allowed for the poorest of poor. The homeless could say Immanuel, because Jesus was pure homeless, “foxes have holes but the son of man does not have a place to lay HIS head. A socially rejected person or social group cold say Immanuel because Jesus spoke to them, touched them and cleared their misconception about what it means to be “true worshiper”
Knowing HIM mean we do not get fascinated only by his virgin birth, but also his message, his life, his personality, his knowledge of word and yet so compassionate and kind, his death, his last words “father forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” His resurrection and HIS second coming, HE was, HE is and HE is to come. Our past, our present and our future are enveloped in HIM. Immanuel, “God is with us”
…this (the Gospel) is an ex extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him. This Good News is still transforming lives, societies and nations

”We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counterrevolutions, wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen (Great Britain), once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that ‘the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.’ I’ve heard a crazed, cracked Austrian (Hitler) announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown (Mussolini) say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I’ve heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin (Stalin), acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as being wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.
I have seen America wealthier and, in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together–so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.
All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!
England, now part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixote’s of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.
All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone! Gone with the wind!
Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of One: because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace – the person of Jesus Christ.”– Malcolm Muggeridge –

Immanuel God is with us, this is the good news of Christmas, not only to tell others but also for us to live every minute with this constant understanding of it. When we know, we do not get fascinated only by his virgin birth, but also his message, his life, his personality, his knowledge of word and yet so compassionate and kind, his death, his last words “father forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” His resurrection and HIS second coming, HE was, HE is and HE is to come. Our past, our present and our future is enveloped in HIM. Immanuel, “God is with us”
Bibliography
Zacharias, Ravi, 2000, Jesus among other Gods, W Publishing Group. Nashville, Tennessee
Jitu