Today, as we celebrate the birth of Christ. Yesterday. 2,000+ years ago. Tomorrow. 5,000 years from now. Three little Hebrew words give us meaning and purpose to our existence. I am sure everyone reading this blog has long heard and used the word Immanuel with the understanding it refers to Jesus, the Son of God. But most of you have not studied Biblical Hebrew, so you may not know that Immanuel is NOT one word. It is three small Hebrew words which when put together create this amazing appellation for the Son of God.
Im is the Hebrew preposition which means “with.” It looks like this – עִם.
Nu is the Hebrew pronoun which means “us.” It looks like this – נוּ.
El is the Hebrew proper noun for the name of God, often meaning power, strength, mighty God. It looks like this – אֵל.
You put these three little words together – adding a double “m” is required before the pronoun “us” may be added to “with,” which also requires an extra vowel – hence, im plus nu becomes “immanu” instead of just “imnu”. Probably way too much information, but for any who were questioning – now you know how we got this amazing word Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14 [NIV] says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
The New Testament writer Matthew tells us this – “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’) Matthew 1:23 [NIV].
Chew on this for a few moments in the last hours of this Advent day known as December 25th – how often do I really, I mean really, feel that the almighty powerful God who created the universe is actually, really, “with me”? How often do I even consider that as I go through my daily activities, Imma-Nu-El is indeed with me.
This promise – made by God through the prophet Isaiah and then repeated centuries later by one of Jesus’ disciples the Gospel writer Matthew – is not just a Christmas Day nice thing to say and sing about.
This promise from God gives us purpose and meaning to our existence on this planet. May each of us think on this promise repeatedly every day of our lives. I hope to always connect this promise of Imma-Nu-El with the ending words of the Merton Prayer: “I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.
You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/
[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]
The Merton Prayer 