Out of the hundred and one names and titles of Jesus Christ that could be found in the Bible 'Immanuel' is one. This name is a combination of three ancient Hebrew words meaning "God with us". This name was given through Isaiah, who prophesied during 8th century B.C. Isaiah made most of the explicit prophecies about Christ's birth and death. His prophecies reflect on the holiness and justice of God vis-à-vis the unrighteous and unjust life of the people of Israel. This was at the time of political problem faced by the king of Judah (the southern kingdom after the death of Solomon) Ahaz when his kingdom was threatened with an attack by the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria. The Judean king did not have trust in God, but he wanted to avoid him by not only depending on human power and force, but also by failing to lead his people in the path of social and economic justice. Through the prophet God spoke about giving a supernatural sign, the sign of Immanuel, implying that he is with his people to protect them.

"Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). This verse is quoted by the evangelist Matthew in his Gospel in the New Testament (Mtt. 1:23) with regard to Jesus, who was born of the Virgin Mary. The prophecy through Isaiah implies two things:

Firstly, God wants to be with his people, specially people who are afflicted by worldly powers and unjust people, with even sinful people because of his saving grace and mercy; secondly, people ought to believe in him and not only believe in him, but also trust him and obey his commandments each of which has great significance in both individual and corporate lives, in both so-called spiritual and material aspects of life for the interest of establishing and maintaining a society of people to live in justice, peace and harmony.

It is useful to note that as we might know, Old Testament prophecy had double implications. It had a contemporary meaning and also a meaning of fulfilment in the future. This particular prophecy about 'Immanuel' came to be fulfilled in the birth of Jesus on Christmas day in the long run. Jesus was to be called 'Immanuel' implying that God is with us. The Creator and Redeemer God is not remote from his creation. He lives in our hearts and minds, in our experiences. He is not just a God of the philosophers. He created the world to dwell in it. Isaiah said, "For this is what the Lord says -- he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth he found it; he did not create it in vain, but formed it to dwell in it." In the birth of his Son as a human person God made it most explicit that He is with His creation. God gave Himself to the world.

God is holy, loving and just. In Biblical teaching God is righteous because He is just. Without justice there is no righteousness in biblical theology. The Hebrew word 'tsedek' means both. These are his attributes stemming out of his very nature. Both justice and righteousness unfold to us the very nature of God's love. So we find that these Trinitarian attributes of God are intertwined with each other. The Hebrew Psalter sang: "for the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face." (Psalm 11:7). Again he declared, "The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love" (Psalm 33:5). God's virtue of Justice and righteousness is published in his works.

We know God's justice by looking at what he does in history. The Bible is a great record of this. He is the God who is on the side of the poor and the oppressed, the neglected and the sinned-against ones, the captives, the weak and the vulnerable ones in any society. God brings down the mighty and haughty ones and lifts up and vindicates the lowly and weak. Thus Mary in her song of praise to God the Magnificat in the Gospel according Luke (Chapter 1) praised God for all His work of liberation of the poor and the oppressed people by any evil power of tyranny and unjust system or structures.

God created human beings in his own image and likeness, so the Bible records. Man is His crown of creations: all mankind rich or poor, high or low, black or white. To mankind He has given the dominion and faithful stewardship of all his creation. All of God's creation belongs to man. So God gives man the intelligence and mastery over all that is there to be used for man's good and ultimate glory to God himself. This authentic exercise of man's stewardship implies man's integrity and a right relationship of man with God, with others, with nature and within man's own self. This four-fold relationship was broken with man's fall at the beginning of things due to man's pride and greed.

According to the Bible man is created in the image and likeness of God which implies that man ought to reflect God's attributes of love, holiness, justice and righteousness. That's why Christ came to live with man and showed the way for true manhood. God spoke to people in history and He is still speaking in events in cultures and histories. There cannot be any dichotomy in the sight of God between the so-called spiritual aspects of life and the material ones. All are to be seen in the perspective of total and holistic point of view that we need to live lives of love and compassion for each other so that every life is respected and enhanced.

Today we live in a world where about 30,000 children die of hunger or malnutrition, about 700 people are affected with leprosy, more than 10,000 people are affected with HIV, and thousands of people are rendered homeless every day. 94 per cent of the world's income is used up by 40 per cent people and, therefore, 60 per cent of world's population lives on the remaining fraction of 6 per cent of world's income. A half of the world's population has to live on less than 2 US dollars a day. Professor Yunus aptly said in his speech in his Nobel Peace prize receiving ceremony that the poor people are like bonsai trees. There is poverty, alienation, oppression of people by people because of greed for undue privileges for some people and lust of power. In such a world God came to mankind in human form and showed the ideal of perfect human life so that man can turn away from wayward and sinful life and enjoy the life of abundance, life of peace and harmony with all from whom he has been alienated because of sin.

God's heart is in pain when man has sufferings of any kind. At Christmas God's eternal and life giving word became incarnated in the person of the baby Jesus, who showed God's perfect love, holiness and righteousness. He was sinned against, though he did not know sin; he was reviled and tortured to death, but he did not take revenge, he was utterly humiliated, but he remained faithful to his mission of saving the lives of the sinners. Jesus, the only Perfect man for others, is the one "in whom all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9). John, the writer of the fourth Gospel gives the perfect testimony to him as he says in the Prologue to the same, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; and all things were made through Him apart from him nothing was made that was made..And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

We cannot comprehend the true significance of this mystery by any logic or reasoning. We can attempt to fathom the depth, height, the width and breadth of God's supreme sacrifice in grace and truth only in genuine faith. And that faith needs to be incarnated in the transformation of our attitude to life and to the world around us. Most of our religious activities are mere lip-service. It does no good to any. We need to conform to God's holy will for us. We need to identify with God in his pain by practically identifying with the people who suffer.

I like these words of Dr Bob Pierce, the founder of World Vision, the largest privately funded child-sponsoring charitable organisation in the world: "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." God did not send messages only for solving the human predicament arising out form sin, but He incarnated that message supremely. For God chose to be clothed Himself in human nature and became a man to experience the pangs of sin so that man's life is changed and made whole. Christmas points our whole being to God lying in a manger, completely human, yet completely divine. So shall this be the message for Christmas for us: God is with us. Let us be with him!