This passage informs the Christmas story as much as any other in Scripture. We read it every year, perhaps with familiarity but pause and consider it again. It is filled with stunning power. Let me point out just three things.

The Virgin Birth

First, a virgin conceives and bears a son. We read this every December and are used to it. But familiarity must not dull our wonder. There is only one natural way a woman becomes pregnant and Matthew tells us something impossible apart from the intervention of God.

A virginal conception sounds as believable as bureaucratic efficiency or squeezing blood from a turnip. It simply does not happen. But God intervenes. By an omnipotent act of sovereignty, he causes a young woman to conceive though she had never been with a man. Stupefying. Incredible. Awe-inspiring.

God Incarnate

Second, the child born to this virgin is God incarnate. The eternal God Maker of worlds, ruler of galaxies, the One infinite in glory became a zygote. He was knit together in a womb. He was born as a crying, vulnerable baby.

As Michael Card sings:

A fiction as fantastic and wild.
A mother made by her own child.
A helpless babe who cried was God
Incarnate and man deified.

Stop and consider this. The eternally pre-existent and self-sufficient God perfect in holiness took on flesh, with eyelashes, lungs, and a beating human heart. Truly astounding.

Immanuel—God With Us

Third, God came to be with us. We do not naturally feel the weight of that. We tend to think of ourselves as deserving God’s presence. But we are not good. We are not neutral. We are sinful. God would have been fully just to judge us all.

Instead he came to be with us. If by grace you see your sin clearly, this truth should bring tears. God came to be with you: sinful, rebellious, undeserving you. Amazing.

Christmas, Counseling, and Hope

Do you see the hope wrapped in these truths? Perhaps you or someone you’re walking with is crushed under hardship and believes nothing can change. Look to the virgin birth. God opens the womb of a virgin he defies what seems possible. Or maybe you believe God has given up on you. Look to Christ Immanuel and take heart. Yes, you are more sinful than you realize. But God sees every bit of it, and still he came near.

Christmas reminds us that God delights to draw near to sinners. We need hope and as counselors, we are called to give hope. One place to find it is in a manger, where a virgin’s son wrapped in rags and sucking his thumb is revealed as the Almighty God come to save us.