The Pattern of Promise

[Matt 1:20-23 quoting Isaiah 7:10-17]

Scripture doesn’t move in straight lines—it moves in circles.

It moves in patterns and echoes:

birth… danger… rescue… hope… collapse… renewal.

Again and again, the same rhythm.

Again and again, a God who steps toward us.

Matthew says Jesus’ birth fulfilled Isaiah’s words:

“Look—the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Emmanuel: God-with-us.”

Most of us hear “fulfilled” and think prediction… proof… a prophecy checked off a list.But Scripture works differently.

Fulfilled doesn’t mean the fortune-teller was right.

Fulfilled means:

This is how God works—and God keeps working this way.

Because before Mary, there was another young woman—unnamed, afraid, living under political instability, as the world around her shook.

And God told He-Has-Grasped [Ahaz]:

“Ask me for a sign. I want to show you I am with you.”

Ahaz refused—not out of holiness,

but because he didn’t want God involved in his real decisions.

So God gave a sign anyway:

A child.

Born into devastation.

Eating curds and honey—the food of bare survival after everything collapses.

A child whose very existence declared:

God is with us in disaster, scarcity, and fear.

And Matthew says: yes.

That pattern continues.

A child is born again—into empire, uncertainty, and violence.

And again, God whispers through the smallest life:

I am still with you. Not just then. Not just once. Now. Always.

We’ll look more closely at the name Emmanuel.

But for today, hold this close:

God keeps fulfilling the pattern—

life out of barrenness,

hope out of collapse,

presence in the places we fear are empty.

God is with us.

Grace and peace,

John

Renderings of the text from SAMC:

MATTHEW 1: 20-23

As he was considering these things,

look—a messenger of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying:

“He-Adds [Joseph], son of Beloved [David],

do not fear to take Their-Rebellion [Mary] as your wife,

for what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Breath.

She will bear a son,

and you will call his name YHWH-Rescues [Jesus],

for he himself will rescue his people

from their sins.”

All this took place

so that what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled:

“Look—the virgin will hold a child in the womb

and will bear a son,

and they will call his name With-Us-God [Emmanuel],”

which means, “God with us.”

ISAIAH 7:10-17

And YHWH continued to speak to He-Has-Grasped [Ahaz], saying:

“Ask for yourself a sign from YHWH your God:

Ask it from the depths below,

or from the heights above.”

But He-Has-Grasped [Ahaz] said,

“I will not ask,

and I will not test YHWH.”

[he pretends to quote Deuteronomy 6, but actually is avoiding God]

Then he said,

“Hear now, House of Beloved [David]—

Is it too small a thing for you to weary the Morals-of-Dust [of Adam],

that you would also weary my God?

Therefore, the Lord [Adonai], of His own,

will give you a sign:

Look—

the young woman is pregnant

and is bearing a son,

and she will call his name With-Us-God [Immanuel].

Curds and honey he will eat,

[this is the survival food after an agricultural community has been decimated]

so that he may know

to refuse what is evil

and choose what is good.

For before the boy knows

to refuse the evil

and choose the good,

the land you dread—

because of its two kings—

will be abandoned.

YHWH will bring upon you,

upon your people,

and upon your father’s house,

days unlike any since the time

that Fruitful [Ephraim] turned away from Praise [Judah]—

[this refers to the civil war and division of Israel into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms]

the king of Assyria.”

[the largest, most terrifying army in the world]