I do not know what doubts you bring with you today. I do not need to know. Because nearly everyone I have ever sat with—at a hospital bed, graveside, or over coffee—has confessed the same quiet fear: “I am not sure God will show up for me.”
The confession is rarely that direct. We soften and baptize the language so that we might keep it polite enough that the ushers won’t know we’re carrying it into the church.
But Sunday after Sunday, there it is.
Rarely does doubt begin in the head. It’s born in the heart—where disappointment meets fear. In the place where hope has been bruised one too many times.
And we are living, whether we like it or not, in a season of my friend Rabbi Joseph calls “radical uncertainty.”
It is not simply that bad things happen. They always have.
It’s that the ground beneath us no longer feels reliable, as places that once felt safe no longer are. Ordinary days are interrupted by violence we cannot predict, prevent, or explain.
Radical uncertainty is what’s happening around us, and doubt is the internal experience of this uncertainty.
This past week alone reminded us of that. A shooting at Bondi Beach. Another at Brown University. The murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. Different places. Different stories. Yet, the same hollow heartache. Each one whispers the same terrifying truth: The world can change in an instant.
Radical uncertainty presses directly on the heart. It asks questions we didn’t wake up planning to ask.
Are we safe? Are they safe? Is anything guaranteed? Can I really trust God with what I love most?
And if that’s you this morning, the prophet Isaiah has someone he wants you to meet.
King Ahaz does not get much attention on Sunday mornings. I have been in church for most of my life and do not recall one sermon mentioning this young king. Those who might remember Ahaz from Sunday school probably remember him for doing some bad things in the book of Kings.
Here, in Isaiah 7, Ahaz is not a villain. He’s a young leader with the world closing in on him.
Neighboring armies are ready to invade. A global superpower is looking. The city is terrified, and so is their king. Uncertainty abounds.
The prophet put it like this: “The heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.”[i]
That is something we can all feel.
Have you ever been so afraid, or so overwhelmed, that even your faith started to tremble? A moment when even if you believed with all your heart that God would show up, you weren’t sure God could or would help you now?
Ahaz is not wicked. He’s overwhelmed. He’s overcome by fear. He is ruling in his own moment of radical uncertainty. Nothing stable. Nothing secure. No future he can control.
And God does not scold the young king. God comes closer to Ahaz and says, “Ask me for a sign.”[ii]
“Ask me anything, Ahaz. As high as the heavens or as deep as the depths. I want you to trust me. Let me show you who I am.”
It is a divine invitation soaked in tenderness; soaked in grace.
And Ahaz’s response sounds holy but is anything but: “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”[iii]
The young ruler is saying, “Lord, I already have a plan, and I don’t really need you messing it up.”
Ahaz is not being reverent. He’s afraid that if he asks God for a sign, God might actually give him one.
When the world becomes radically uncertain, doubt often feels like the safest response.
Certainty does that to us. It convinces us that trusting God is riskier than taking matters into our own hands. That control, even false control, feels safer than faith.
Ahaz might end up becoming a villain in our scriptures, but he’s also a mirror.
Doubt often hides behind piety. Behind busyness. Behind statements like, “I am fine,” and “I’ll figure it out myself.”
Ahaz is not doubting God because he’s a skeptic. The source of his doubt is his fear of trusting a God who does not operate the way he wants.
And God gives the sign anyway.
Isaiah says, “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call him Immanuel.”[iv]
Not an overwhelming power or display of force. Not something to silence all the doubters.
A baby. A young woman’s pregnancy. A child named Immanuel—God with us.
The sign isn’t comforting in the Hallmark-card way. It is God’s judgment on our insistence on self-sufficiency. It is God’s refusal to play by the rules of fear.
God is saying to Ahaz, “I will not save you through the power you trust. I will save you through the vulnerability you fear.”
God knows something about us: You cannot hold a baby with a clenched fist. And maybe that’s the point.
Doubt is not disarmed by shouts directed at God or by trying harder. Doubts soften because God comes closer. God offers presence when our doubts and fears demand proof. God knows that what we need most is not another argument but someone who will sit with us in our fear.
Emmanuel means God with us—even here, even now, even in our doubt.
Ahaz refused a sign, and you might not be sure what to do with it either. But God gives it anyway. God’s faithfulness arrives whether you are ready or not. Whether your belief is strong or shaky. Whether your hands are open or clenched tight.
And so here we are—the fourth Sunday of Advent, a few days until Christmas—standing alongside Ahaz in a world still marked by radical uncertainty. Still grieving. Still afraid. Still wondering what tomorrow might bring. Standing between the world as it is and the promise God keeps insisting on.
Maybe that’s where you find yourself today.
Maybe you’ve prayed for a sign and heard nothing.
Maybe you’ve prayed for nothing and still received something you weren’t quite sure what to do with.
Maybe your doubt isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s simply the quiet question that liners on the edge of your faith: Will God really show up for me?
God isn’t threatened by your doubt.
God isn’t disappointed in your fear.
God isn’t waiting for your faith to become perfect before God becomes Emmanuel.
God gives a sign anyway –not to eliminate uncertainty, but to refuse abandonment
A child. Fragile as hope. Small enough to miss. Close enough to hold.
God comes to the faithless kings and frightened people. To doubters and disciples. And God comes not because our trust is strong but because God’s promise is still stronger.
As Advent begins to give way to Christmas, this is the truth we carry. The hole we cling to:
The God who gave the sign to Ahaz has given Himself. Not in theory or prophecy but in flesh and blood. In a child in a manger. In bread and wine. In a savior hung on a tree. And in the hope of an empty tomb.
God has made up God’s mind about you.
God, Emannuel, is with us.
God with you.
In your fear.
In your hope.
In your doubt.
In your longing for a sign.
Amen.
[i] Isaiah 7:2 ESV
[ii] Isaiah 7:11
[iii] Isaiah 7:12
[iv] Isaiah 7:14
