Emmanuel: God With Us in the Waiting

Reflections on the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A) – December 21, 2025

Matthew 1:18-25 – "... they shall name him Emmanuel."

Rev. Bobby Musengwa

Transitional General Presbyter

This past week we attended two memorial services for two pastors at Mission Presbytery. The services for Lizabeth Islas Martinez, Commissioned Ruling Elder, washeld at her beautiful small church at Cheapside, Texas.

The church is in a rural, isolated place. One can easily pass it, if you did not pay attention. GPS had trouble locating it. I learned that we had to fill the gas before embarking on such trips. The church was full, and the service was uplifting. People shared how their pastor loved them and cared for their community, even as she battled her own health challenges.

We thank God for the life and faithful service of Rev. Lizabeth Islas Martinez.

On Saturday, December 13, 2025, we held the celebration of life service for Rev. Rubén Armendáriz at Covenant Presbyterian Church in San Antonio. Rubén had clearly been a trailblazer and a joyful warrior in the struggle to open the doors for the least of these. We are eternally grateful to God for Rubén’s faithful witness to the gospel.

Both of these pastors ministered to the people of God joyfully in the midst of personal and social difficulties. They did not wait for the perfect time to tee up their perfect ministries. There is no perfect time nor is there a perfect ministry. We jump into the social, economic, and political mess and engage in ministry.

This is what the story of Advent tells us. God did not wait for the perfect time in history to send Jesus Christ to a perfect people. God jumped into the mess that humans made, of imperial rule and oppression, and a tired people who had been waiting for a long time for their Messiah. The Fourth Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of Love. Love comes to us today, in the here and now. Love comes to a people weighed down by rising costs, fragile jobs, polarized politics, and gnawing fear about the future. Advent waiting, in this context, is not quiet or romantic. It is the tired waiting of those who wonder how long they can hold on.

Mary, Joseph, and ancient Israel also waited under foreign power, heavy taxation, and social tension, so Matthew’s story meets people whose fears about money, safety, and their children’s future feel painfully familiar.

The angel said they would name him Emmanuel. “Emmanuel” is a compound Hebrew word which means God with us. Emmanuel means God is present in homes where the budget does not stretch and the ends do not meet. God is with us in hearts worn thin by conflict and uncertainty. Indeed, Emmanuel is with us in the midst of every crisis.

In Matthew 1:18-25, God comes into a world of Rome’s imperial control and local vulnerability, showing that divine presence is not an escape from history but it’s God’s decision to share life inside unjust systems, family stress, and the unknown.

Today, our Advent waiting is not passive resignation. Instead, it is the hard work of choosing generosity when resources feel scarce and choosing truth and mercy when public life runs on fear and resentment.

The Church’s waiting becomes a quiet resistance: trusting that Christ is at work in the “in-between,” in small acts of justice, mutual support, and prayer that do not make the news but embody “God with us” for neighbors on the edge, even at Cheapside, Texas.

When we expected few people to show up at Cheapside, we were gladly surprised by the overwhelming crowd of people who had come to say goodbye to their beloved pastor. They filled the church to overflowing.

Rev. Martinez had served the people of God with “energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.” She had served in the midst of incredible odds stacked against her. But God was with her even as she walked through the valley of the shadow of death. We are grateful for her ministry!

My dear friends at Mission Presbytery, you know that waiting well in this season means learning to tell the truth about people’s fear and fatigue, their losses as well as their hopes, while also bearing witness that God has not walked away from us, or from this economy, this nation, this world, or this moment.

The incarnation proclaims that God does not wait for perfect conditions or stable institutions. God comes precisely when communities feel most fragile and the future most uncertain, turning survival-mode seasons into spaces where new possibilities can be born.

Rev. Kevin Boyd, Honorably Retired, has invited me to return to Cheapside and meet the people of that area again. I can’t wait to get back there, to break bread with them again, and to bear witness to what God has been up to in the lives of those who are on the margins, vulnerable, and feel forgotten by the world. They are loved and are re-membered by God and by us.

The congregation’s presence in that cramped sanctuary reminded me that God is with us, whether we recognize it or not. Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord, who has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. Friends, do not be afraid. Always remember Emmanuel, God with us, in season and out of season.

Have a blessed Advent season and a Merry Christmas to you!

Reflection and Prayer

Reflect: Where do money worries, political tensions, or institutional changes make you feel most alone right now? What would it mean to look for Emmanuel - not solutions on your timetable, but God’s real presence - right there?

Prayer: Emmanuel, God with us, meet us in layoffs and late notices, in anger and exhaustion, in congregations and communities that feel stretched thin. In this Fourth Sunday of Advent, fill our waiting with courage, our fear with your steady peace, and our common life with the hope that you have chosen to be here with us, now. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Incarnate Lord. Amen.