Written by Aimee-Beloved by Him

In Wilson Rawls’ classic book Where the Red Fern Grows, a coming-of-age story set in post-depression Oklahoma, a poor country boy becomes obsessed with “dog wanting.” He spends two years saving pennies, nickels, and dimes to purchase two hounds from a mail-order catalog he has found. He collects crawfish and minnows, picks berries, and traps small animals for their fur, and from the sale of these items to local sportsmen and in his grandfather’s country store, the coins in his tin can slowly add up to the $50 he needs. After the pups are ordered, he walks barefoot twenty miles through the hills to claim them. The dogs quickly become his best friends, and he loves nothing more than being with them as he teaches them to hunt racoons in the willow creeks and canebrakes. The three are connected by a powerful bond of love, a love so deep that each feels the other’s physical distress as if it were their own. In the end, when one of the dogs dies from an injury he receives during a brutal fight to protect the boy from a mountain lion, the other dog actually loses her will to live. Such tragedy might have been too much for the boy, until he finds out that his family was planning to move to the city for a better life. His parents were going to allow him to stay on the farm, though they and his sisters would have been heart-broken, because they understood his relationship with the dogs. Though the boy lost his dogs, he was spared a far greater loss–the loss of the family that loved him.

From the beginning of creation, God could look forward in time at His people and see that He would lose us. Each individual, exquisitely fashioned by His hands and given life by His breath, would be lost to sin and ultimate separation from the Creator. How could His holiness dwell with our sinfulness–not just on earth, but for eternity?

The Old Testament sacrificial system, while it cleansed temporarily, was not a permanent fix. We still could not approach God, because the truth of the matter is, as soon as we made the sacrifice, we turned around and sinned again. We are, as Paul put it, “dead in our sins.” (Eph. 2:5) And if we die in our sins, we can’t dwell with God, Who is too holy to behold sin. Without permanent forgiveness and justification, our only option is eternal separation from God in hell. So how could God remove the stain of our sins from us, yet still apply the punishment we deserved? We need help–greater help than any human could provide. We need a Savior. We need Emmanuel–“God with us.”

There are 613 prophetic Scriptures found in the Old Testament that foretell the coming of the Messiah. God, in His infinite love and grace, promised His people that there would be One Who would come and make all things right, One Who would dwell among them, deliver them, and redeem them from their destructions. But as they waited, Israel persisted in its sins. Many times, Israel suffered utter defeat when God did not go out with His people in battle because their sin had separated Him from them. As time went on, the minds of many turned from seeking a Messiah Who would bring an eternal kingdom to the false notion of an earthly ruler who would establish Israel as a prolific national power. Who they should have been looking for was the One Who the prophet Isaiah described, a Suffering Servant:

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hide, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, everyone, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked–but with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was nay deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53)

Jesus came to fulfill every prophecy and law. He also knew the cost of His love for us, but once it was paid and we accepted His free gift of salvation, He could abide with us forever, living through us by the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t enough that He would see us when we got to heaven. He wanted permanent communion with us, to give us His life everyday so that we could live–not the fallen, hopeless, empty life the world offers, but a life of love, power, and truth that would constantly reveal more and more of Who He is.

Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” We’re not promised a life full of earthly comforts and pleasures. We’re promised His presence–sufficient, strengthening, and upholding. Not only will He never leave us or forsake us, but He can do in and through us “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us.” (Eph. 3:20, Heb. 13:5) No matter what we are facing, Jesus tells us to “be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) We can take heart because we know that greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world. (I John 4:4)

That’s the joy of Emmanuel–God with us. Jesus is and will always be with us, His people! May our joy be full as we abide in Him and experience His wonderful presence everyday until we see Him face to face.

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