Excerpts from: 'The Immanuel Name Domain' Today, names have become the modern business battleground, with lawyers and marketers doing battle over the economic value of what a company or product might be called. Did you have your cup o' joe this morning? That's (Zing-bah-kuh) Xing Ba Ke for us non-Chinese speakers. Xing Ba Ke. It's a compound word in which "xing" means "star" and "ba Ke" means "bucks." So there you have it--Starbucks. Funny, translated into English, the Xing Ba Ke stores have the same name as the world renowned Seattle based coffee company, Starbucks, and Starbucks is not too happy about it. Starbucks alleges the two stores Xing Ba Ke operates, is an infringement on its trademark. So, what's in a name? If you're in business, lots of cash. Maybe even billions. On the WWW "Namespace" - or a territory within which all names are distinct and unique - has become the modern business battleground, with lawyers and marketers girding their loins for a fight over the economic value of what a company or product might be called. The stakes are high, considering a name like "Nike" is thought to be worth about $7 billion and "Coca Cola" 10 times that much. Used to be that if you were dreaming up a name for a new company or product you could draw it up on the kitchen table and hang the shingle outside. Now it's not always so simple. The Internet has expanded the global marketplace with so much stuff and so many people making and selling that the pool of available brand and domain names has apparently dried up. There just aren't enough original names to go around. When people lived in the society of the tribe and village, a single name for each person was enough - no need to fight about it. But as cities and societies grew and became more complex, so did the complexity and conflict over naming rights. The more people, the more confusion. Naming - whether it's people or products - can be a frustrating, costly business on the web, or on Wall Street.....Unless, of course, you truly do come up with something original, something unique and identifiable, some name that provides the ultimate brand recognition, longevity and connection with the consumer - something that will leave its stamp on people forever. Leave it to God to be the ultimate namedropper. So what IS the inherent value of a Bethlehem baby's name? The background to our text this morning is really important to understand. The historical setting of the prophecy of the birth of Messiah is given in the opening two verses of Isaiah 7.
This is a report of ancient power politics. The ten tribes of Israel had joined in a military alliance with the nation of Syria and had invaded the southern kingdom of Judah . They besieged Jerusalem, surrounding it with their armies, but could not overcome it. The reaction of king Ahaz, coward and unbeliever that he was, and of the people of his kingdom was, as Isaiah describes here, one of panic: So the hearts of the king and his people trembled with fear; just a trees shake in a storm. We learn from the book of Second Kings that at this juncture King Ahaz resorted to expediency. He gathered all the temple vessels and gold and silver and sent them far away to the north, to the king of Assyria , the superpower of that day, and hired him by this means to come against these two kings and thus deliver Jerusalem from the threat they represented. He relied upon manipulation, playing one power against another -- a familiar tactic that has been employed throughout history. Right at this point, when the king and the whole nation are trembling with fear at what might happen, God sends the prophet Isaiah to him with a message.
Isaiah brings a word of comfort to the king. He tells him he does not have any need to fear as there is no real danger. Notice the almost contemptuous way God refers to these two invading armies and their kings. "Two burned-out embers" he calls them. Their fire has gone out; there is nothing but smoke left. In Verse 7 we discover why.
Do you believe what God has said? Do you act (believe) accordingly? Every name is descriptive of its holder. Names are unique and not easily changed except by a higher authority. God changes Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel , just to name a few. Even God's name, YHWH, had a powerfully descriptive quality in its declaration - "I am who I am." Cheek this out. Notice first that the prophet is specifically told to take along with him his little son Shear-iashub. Although the boy does nothing and says nothing, his very presence is required to make this prophecy meaningful, as we will see. The boy's name means, "A remnant shall return". This is a significant element that the prophet is to bring before the king. In studying the Old Testament it is important to note the meaning of people's names. Hebrews did not choose their children's names like we do -- after some movie star, a great football player, or some name that has been in the family for years. Hebrew names mean something, and oftentimes teach a lesson. For instance, the name of the oldest person who ever lived, Methuselah, means, "When he dies, it will come." What a strange thing to name your child! But in Genesis 5 we learn that the father of Methuselah was another remarkable man named Enoch, one of only two men in the Bible who never died, but was "caught up" when he reached 365 years of age. Enoch began his walk with God when he was 65 years old, and the reason he did so was because he had a little boy whom he named Methuselah! These clues help us figure out what is going on. It makes the Scriptures come alive. A look at the context reveals that what changed Enoch's life and made him walk with God was the revelation that there was coming a great event that would significantly affect every human being then on earth. He was told to name his little boy "When he dies, it will come.," Can you imagine what it meant to the people of that day to have this little boy around, reminding them all the time, "When he dies, it will come?" How they must have kept track of him! "Where's Methuselah? I haven't seen him all day. Let's find him because 'When he dies, it will come!'" If you check the record, you will find that the very year that Methuselah died was the year the flood came. Here in Isaiah we will see why Shear-jashub ("A remnant will return") is a very key part of this prophecy. Then the second thing we are told is the precise spot on which God directed the prophet to stand when he made this announcement to the king. You probably read this thinking that it was nothing more than a casual direction God gave to him. But it is very significant. Isaiah was told to go to the "end of the aqueduct of the upper pool on the road to the field where cloth is bleached"; to stand at that very spot and give this announcement to King Ahaz. What is the meaning of that? There at that spot, and only there, the prophet was to inform King Ahaz that he had nothing to fear from these two armies that were threatening the city of Jerusalem . They were only "burned out embers" and were no real threat at all. So, within that period of time, sometime before forty years had elapsed, Israel, the northern kingdom, would become a captive nation, and Syria's power would be smashed by the might of a greater nation, the kingdom of Assyria . All this came true, as God had said. In looking at this passage we must remember the peculiar nature of Isaiah's commission. In Chapter 6 he was sent to this people with a very strange message. God said to him,
Here we are given a clue that Isaiah is to prophesy in rather cryptic, double-meaning language. This word about the "aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is bleached." is a good example of this. The beauty of the Hebrew language is that it is capable of a number of different meanings. That is not true of Greek. Scholars and students love the Greek New Testament because Greek is a very precise language. But Hebrew is not like that. Greek-impressionism, very detailed Hebrew-abstract, see more than one thing. It paints in big globs of color which can be interpreted in various ways. Many of the Hebrew words actually have many meanings -- sometimes meanings that are even opposites. Granted that this makes interpretation difficult, but it also makes it challenging and very interesting. The word "pool" here "the aqueduct of the upper pool", in Hebrew also means "blessing." It is obvious why a pool of water would 'be called a blessing. In a dry and thirsty land any pool of water would clearly prove to be a blessing. So the word has both meanings. The word "upper" ("the upper pool") means more than a pool located on a higher level. It also means "the most high." So what we have as a second meaning is the phrase "The blessing of the Most High." This pool is a spring of water, located on the hillside west of the old City of David which flowed down an aqueduct to the city. At the end of it, where it emptied into a small pool, was the spot where the prophet was told to take his stand: "at the end of the aqueduct from the upper pool." At the same time, that was also the place where the road by which he came there, "the road leading to the field where cloth is bleached," led. A highway in Scripture is always an ascent. It is called in Isaiah 35 "the highway of holiness," so it has to do with righteousness and moral cleansing. This is also strenathened by the fact that it led to the "field where cloth is bleached. " The field was a place of washing, cleansing and purification of garments. Thus we can see why a pool which was "the end of an aqueduct" of water, coming down from an upper spring, would also be the place where people washed their clothes. That is the spot where Isaiah was told to stand. When these meanings are considered we see why the prophet was sent to where these two places met -- it was where the "upward way of cleansing and of washing met the downward flow of the channel of the blessings of the Most High." What would that symbolize? From the New Testament, we know it could only describe the Lord Jesus himself. He is the "end of the aqueduct, the channel of the blessing of the Most High." He is also "the way of cleansing," the upward ascent that brought the prophet to this place. It is all a beautiful poetic description of Jesus himself. (Forty years later, by the way, the king of Assyria stood on that very spot and threatened the city of Jerusalem again. God met him by sending an angel into the camp of the Assyrians and slew 185,000 of them in one night.). Now we learn why the prophet was told to take his son Shear-jashub with him. A remnant shall return-indeed it would as the Jews would rebuild. In today's passage from Isaiah, The Lord, through the prophet, is directing King Ahaz to ask for a sign to strengthen his faith about what to do about his kingdom being threatened by invaders. Ahaz, however, refuses to ask God what to do, following in: the tradition of other Israelite kings who were often more infatuated with their own names than with God's brand stamp. But Isaiah tells Ahaz that God will provide a sign anyway (7:14), "Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." In Isaiah's time, God does the naming of the child who will represent his message of hope to people through a dark time in their history. The boy named "Immanuel," is God's logo of love - a sign that God will not leave them to fend for themselves. If there was ever a time when Ahaz needed a clear sign that God was with him, it was at that particular moment in Judah 's history. The country is in decline and besieged from without. They are only 25-30 years from political extinction, although Ahaz couldn't have known that. Ahaz needed to know that God was with him, but, incredibly. he didn't want to know! Not unlike many of us who, in our hour of trial, rebel rather than repent. We prefer to push ahead to our own destruction rather than kneel down for our own salvation. God has a sign for us at Advent, and the sign is a Son, and the name of the Son is Immanuel. It means, "God with us." We can cherish the sign, embrace the name, and know that, whatever our sorrow, or whatever our circumstance, God is with us, or we can respond with the Ahaz answer: "I will not ask." There's a lot of God's people missing out on God's blessing because they will not ask. Jesus says, "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you" (Matthew 7:7). Perhaps we don't because we have too many doubts, too much guilt, or too much, pride. Immanuel. The name stuck and had new life breathed into it later when Matthew would pick up on Isaiah's prophetic theme and name image in his birth narrative of Jesus. Jesus, too, would be an "Immanuel," but even more so - not simply a representative of God, but God himself come in the flesh among the people to rescue them from despair - Immanuel in the fullest sense of the name: a unique, one-of-a-kind, powerful, brand-able and memorable name. Interestingly, however, "Immanuel" is not the name that we google up first when we think of the incarnation. We use the more common name "Jesus" when we talk about the Savior of the whole world. Jesus - a form of "Yeshua" or "Joshua" - was a pretty common name in first-century Israel . After all, Joshua, a hero of the Exodus, was a titanic figure in the history of Israel. It would be an apt name for anyone important, but particularly for one who would "save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1 :21 ). But still, in and around Bethlehem and the rest of first-century Israel , Jesus was a "been there, done that" name - easy to lose in the crowd. It's a name that could have wound up as the "John Smith" of the ancient world. But perhaps it's that commonality that makes Jesus, the Immanuel, so much easier for all of us to embrace. In his commonality, "God with us" became in very literal terms "one of us" - a common man, but with an uncommon mission. God used the commonness of Mary-who said, "So be it unto me." Which means, "Yes, God." It was the cross and resurrection that forever stamped that common name with eternal significance, making Jesus the ultimate name - the name at which "every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philipp.ians 2:10-11). Talk about a "domain name"! Have the common things of God ever changed your life? How?Have you ever asked the Lord for a sign? If yes, what happened? If not, what do you think might happen? What are signs of God's presence and guidance in your life? How do you discern them? How is God using life's ordinary experiences to lead you? Do YOU truly celebrate Immanuel, God with us? What does it mean to you that God is with us? How is it that God is with us? In Isaiah 9:6, the prophet reminds us that there's no shortage of names to describe the Messiah, the one who will save his people: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Lion of Judah, Rose of Sharon ... the Bible is full of names for him. Xingbake. Starbucks. They want to sell you coffee. Immanuel. God's not selling, he's giving. God gives to us Immanuel. And he's inviting us to "Ask." "Seek and you will find." "Call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things." It's all there in that name. God with us. God with us, then, now, and always. In the same way, God works great miracles in ways unspectacular and unexpected. All we need do is open our eyes to the possibilities. |