Being Christmas People

Isaiah, chapter 9, verse 1,.

Isaiah 9:1

Nevertheless, the gloom of the distressed land will not be like that of the former times, when he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naftali, but in the future, he will bring honour to the way of the sea, to the land east of the Jordan and to Galilee of the nations.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.

A light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.

You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy.

The people have rejoiced before you, as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils, for you have shattered their oppressive yoke and the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor, just as you did on the day of Midian, for every trampling boot of battle and the bloody garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire, for a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us and the government will be on his shoulders.

He will be named wonderful counsellor.

Mighty God, eternal Father, prince of Peace.

The dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end.

He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness, from now on and forever.

The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.

What a great passage that is.

You know, I read a story once about a student of the Japanese Marshal, arto Aikido, who was on a train in Japan when this big, angry, drunk bloke came on board and started to harass and threaten the other passengers.

Well, this guy was equipped with a newly minted black belt and he was just about to step forward and intervene with physical action when this old man, frail old man, spoke up and spoke to this drunk.

Now, he didn't chastise him, he didn't tell him off or anything like that.

He just started speaking to him gently and talking about stories from his own life.

And somehow this old man tapped into the pain that was driving this big, burly drunk man and within just a few minutes he had this guy bawling his eyeballs out in his mouth.

He had just got his eyeballs out in his lap and had completely diffused the situation.

It was a really impressive display of the power of gentleness.

By the time of the prophet Isaiah, the northern tribes of Israel lay under the yoke of the Assyrian Empire.

It was an empire that delighted in its own power, its own cruelty and its own oppression and it had divided the northern regions of Israel into three administrative zones, and these are mentioned in here at the beginning of our passage this morning.

You had a coastal region, you had a region just on the eastern side of the Jordan, and then you had around Lake Galilee.

The people living here were suffering from extreme, both political and spiritual darkness.

Now, in the scheme of covenant history, the Assyrian invasion had occurred because Israel had abandoned God.

They had started to worship idols well, they had been worshiping them for a long time actually and they oppressed the poor.

They abandoned the Sabbath, they had plunged themselves into spiritual darkness and although God had warned them time and time and time again over centuries, they hadn't listened.

And so, under the terms of the covenant, god sent this northern, or the northern kingdom of Israel into exile under a brutal regime, plunging them into political darkness and social oppression on top of the spiritual darkness they'd plunged themselves into, but where the people could see only darkness and gloom and despair.

Isaiah prophesied light and hope.

Where the nation had shrunk because the invaders had stripped away their lands and their people, god promised to enlarge the nation.

Where there was suffering and despair, there would be rejoicing and as God had done in the days of old with the judge Gideon, back in the book of judges, when he rescued the people from the Midianite hordes, god would break the yoke of the oppressor.

And in fact, isaiah is so certain of this that he writes not using the future tense in the first part of this passage, as we might expect that this is what's going to happen, but actually this is what has happened.

He writes in the past perfect tense it's going to happen, a light has dawn, rescue has come.

Now, how had rescue come?

Because of something that hadn't happened yet a child will be born.

For us, the child had not yet been born, but the promise was so powerful and so secure.

It meant that Israel's future was certain.

But the promise was for a child.

Now, isn't that interesting that Isaiah doesn't emphasize in the first instance a man or a king or a prince?

This is a child.

Now, the child would be heir to David's throne and he'd rule a vast and eternal kingdom.

But Isaiah, here and elsewhere in this book, emphasizes that it's a child.

So Isaiah, as I said, was writing, probably speaking in the first instance to a people living under oppression.

And how do we, as humans, usually confront violence and oppression.

Well, usually it's like our black belt wearing aikido expert there, our would be hero on the train in Japan.

We usually meet oppression and violence with more violence.

That inevitably leads to an ever ending cycle, a cycle that we're witnessing in the Middle East right now in particularly stark fashion, a cycle that only brings more violence and pain and suffering.

But this messiah will come as a child, seemingly powerless, and yet, as we know, not powerless, merely containing his power, because this child, isaiah tells us, will be mighty God.

Now, of course, today we know who this child is.

We celebrate it well, every week for us who are Christians, but every year at Christmas.

So Isaiah's prophetic use of the perfect tense a past as if it had happened is now our historic tense.

It has happened, the child has come, and we look back to the baby who came 2000 years ago and will come again as a conquering king one day, because we anticipate the return of this conquering king.

Some Christians sometimes think that maybe we need to be a little bit more forceful.

Jesus has done the weak stuff.

Now we need to do the strong stuff.

Sometimes they take in even an aggressive.

Sometimes they take in an aggressive stance, perhaps just falling short of violence.

But sometimes, if you read what's coming out of a certain country that won't will remain nameless, you think maybe they're thinking going beyond or moving into violence, an aggressive stance to building God's kingdom, and maybe that's really necessary in these times of spiritual and moral darkness and doesn't?

Revelation, chapter 19, verse 11,.

Revelation 19:11

It depicts Jesus coming as a warrior riding on a white horse, followed by the armies of heaven, and it says a sharp sword came from his mouth so that he might strike the nations with it.

Jesus is the victorious king in that chapter, who brings judgment on the earth.

But we need to forget, not to forget.

We need to remember in that whole book actually, and in this particular verse, that the sword Jesus wields is not made of metal.

It comes from his mouth, it is his words, it is the gospel, and Jesus may now rule from heaven as the risen king and he will one day return as the conquering king.

But until then we must not forget that he came as a child to serve, not to conquer, except to conquer sin and death.

And in this age of increasing division, when families are torn apart by politics and nations are torn apart by war, we still serve a God who came as a baby and who is the Prince of Peace.

And one day he will set out every ruthless yoke, every rod of oppression, every yoke, every rod, but only those of the Assyrians and the Midianites.

And this is why he came, and this is what he calls us to as well proclaiming his gospel of peace.

The way we do this, and the only way we can do this, the only way it will work, is when we come with childlike grace and humility.

Jesus himself said in Matthew 18, unless you turn and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child, this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

So, in God's economy, the path to victory and freedom lies not in power, but through meekness and humility.

Violence only begets more violence.

We see it time and time again.

Resisting force with force.

What does it do?

It just creates more tension.

But Jesus overcame sin and death, not by meeting at head on, but by submitting to it.

Submitting to sin and death.

Not that he sinned, but he became sin for us.

By dying.

He overcame and he made the way for many, all who will, to enter his kingdom.

Well, it seems like a fool's errand, doesn't it, to overcome evil this way?

It seems like a fool's errand, especially if we forget who Jesus was, that he wasn't just a baby, he wasn't just human.

Isaiah wasn't just foretelling the coming of a naive child, or even just a wise man, but a divine man.

I just find it astounding, actually, that Isaiah wrote, centuries before Christ, of his divinity In a way that still many people can't accept.

Jews just will not accept that this is talking about a divine Messiah.

It's blasphemy, and so many try to not just Jews, of course.

Christians even try to deny that.

This is what Isaiah meant and some people might call out well, the New Testament particularly.

But it never calls Jesus.

God does it.

Well, you know what?

Actually, it comes pretty close as we read throughout Scripture.

There's not many places as overt as this, but we can see Jesus' deity pointed at throughout the Scripture.

A little acronym called HANS, h-a-n-d-s helps us remember.

First of all, because Jesus shares the honor that God has.

In Matthew 4.10, jesus quoted Deuteronomy when the devil was tempting him and he said we're to worship God alone.

And do you know what Jesus goes and does at the end of Matthew?

Not even at the end he receives.

Worship, worship, only God.

And what do people do when they worship Him?

He receives it.

Jesus shares the honors of God Attributes.

In many places the Bible says that Jesus has the same attributes as God, same qualities, the same, for example, here in Isaiah and also in John chapter 1,.

John 1 · chapter mention

Jesus is eternal, no beginning and no end.

There is no other than God that has that quality, that attribute.

The names Jesus is given throughout Scripture, names and titles that belong only to God.

Here the child is mighty God, an eternal father, mind-blowing.

In Revelation 1, verse 8, this is one of my favorite in the Bible we read I am the Alpha and the Omega says the Lord, god, the one who is, who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Revelation 1:8

And in Revelation 22, at the end of the book, jesus says I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the deeds of God.

Jesus performs the same things that God does.

In John chapter 1, verse 3, we read that he is the Creator of all things.

John 1:3

In John chapter 5, verse 21, the Father and the Son both give life.

John 5:21

Here in Isaiah, the child will be called the Prince of Peace.

And in Isaiah 66, as well as other places.

Yahweh makes peace flow like a river.

The child is called Wonderful Counselor in Isaiah 28.

It's Yahweh who gives Wonderful Counsel.

He performs the deeds of God and he sits on the seat of God.

Here the child will sit on a throne, and in Revelation 321 we see Jesus sits on none other than the heavenly throne of God with Him.

So in Colossians, chapter 1, verses 15 to 20, paul writes that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

Colossians 1:15–20

Everything was created through Him.

He pre-exists before all things and sustains all things, and the fullness of God dwells in Him.

So Jesus is God.

And if anyone had the right and the ability to conquer evil by force, isn't it God?

God incarnate.

But he didn't and he still doesn't.

The cross is God's final answer to oppression and sin and death.

And you know what?

It's our final answer as well.

So Christmas is about the all-powerful God who became a powerless child, jesus Christ, a man who, through powerlessness, overcame the most powerful forces in nature to set people free and give them a new identity as His people, a people of love and hope and of peace.

And so it matters for us as Christians and that we remain Christmas people, a people who choose the way of humility and servanthood, and even death, rather than power, so that we can bring the hope, joy and peace of the all-conquering servant king the servant king to the people around us, because that is God's way, and, frankly, the alternatives don't really bear thinking about, do they?

And so, whether it's in our homes or workplaces, or communities or nations, if we choose the way of power, we only keep the cycle of fear, anxiety, strife and violence alive, like we're seeing in Ukraine and Gaza.

Now, I don't know, perhaps in a fallen world, kingdoms and nation states have no choice but to respond to evil with power, but as God's people, we have another way.

Here's the thing, though following this way is where our faith is really tested.

You don't know what someone really believes by what they say.

It's by what they do and how they live.

And faith is not just believing that Jesus is who the Bible claims he is, but that His way is effective because of who the Bible says he is and what the Bible says he did.

And faith is believing that, because he made the way to life by submitting to death, I can die daily with Him and it'll be okay.

I can lay down my life, because I know that this is the way I find life and that I bring life to others, his life to others.

So the king was born a child in humility and in helplessness.

He was no ordinary child.

He was the God of the universe, come in gentleness, and although he could have conquered through power, he had a moral, and he still has a moral right to do that.

He instead chose to conquer through weakness.

And so this Christmas, in our strife and ridden world, let's open up our hearts to the Prince of Peace, that we can become agents, his agents of peace, as we walk in humility and gentleness, laying down our lives for Him and with Him.

Let's pray.

Father, I just find this an immensely challenging picture, not because I have any power to confront evil anyway, but because it calls me to die.

Lord, I pray that you will help me, that you will allow us to be a church that is willing to choose daily the way of dying to self, of dying to the things that make us powerful in a worldly sense, that we can know the true power of God, the power of love and peace, the power of joy that overcomes.

In Jesus' name, amen, thank you, alex.