Ahaz, king of Judah, was faced with enemies who sought to conquer Jerusalem (Isaiah 7:1). So the prophet Isaiah told Ahaz that God would give him a sign: A virgin would bear a son who would be named Immanuel—meaning “God with us.” The sign was to convince Ahaz that God would be with him and deliver him from his enemies.

But Isaiah’s prophecy proved to be a foreshadowing of what would happen to another virgin some seven centuries later: Mary, the mother of Jesus. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary’s pregnancy was from God (Matthew 1:20-21). And Matthew explains that Mary’s conception was a fulfillment of the prophecy given to Ahaz that a virgin would be with Child and bear a Son who would be called Immanuel, “which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). And it happened just as Isaiah prophesied and Matthew confirmed.

Christmas celebrates the reality that God came to dwell among us (John 1:14). And He is with us still by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Nothing in or of this world measures up to the simple pleasure of experiencing the presence of God.
A. W. Tozer