“Then Isaiah said:
Listen, O house of David!
Is it not enough for you to weary people,
must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son,
and shall name him Emmanuel.”
Isaiah 7: 13-14
Many Christians, myself included before studying the scriptures, have a difficult time merging the ideas of the Old Testament to the ideas of the New Testament. However, there are many connections. There was so much foreshadowing of what was to come. As I teach my students, God chose his people and they would listen, and then turn away. They would cry to God to take them back and God would send a prophet to set them on the right path. Slowly, but to be sure they would lose their way again, cry to God and God would send a prophet. Finally, God said here I come, “Emmanuel” God with us. God became man lived among, loved in real time, sacrificed through his body and blood and swung open wide the gates of heaven. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament, but when Jesus came we could understand God better, because he did not send a prophet but himself, Emmanuel. It takes the Old and the New to complete the story and we continue the story every time we choose to love as God loves us, “Emmanuel” to all people!
