Reading: Isaiah 9.1-7
Isaiah 9.6 -
That's a striking expression - "to us a child is born."
A young couple wanted to telegram friends about the birth of their first child - a son. To save costs they simply wrote, "Isaiah 9.6."
We can understand that. It is like the traditional birth announcement - "SMITH, To John and Mary, a son..." But here we have something quite different. "to us a child is born, to us a son is given."
Things had been going rather badly for the Kingdom of Judah, much worse than most people realised. The prophet could see clearly that danger and dark times lay ahead. What was the matter? It was not simply the military might of Assyria, but the nation's sin and disobedience towards God and their lack of trust in him.
"Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness" (Isaiah 8.21-22).
And what about modern-day prophets? "Man now sees that the seeds of his ultimate dissolution are at the heart of his being. The End of the Species is in the marrow of our bones" (Teilhard de Chardin, 1953). "Today even the survival of humanity is a utopian hope" (Norman O. Brown, 1968). "Current indications are that the world is bent on going to hell in a hand cart, and that is probably what it will do" (Gordon Rattray Taylor, 1969). "You are the orphans of an age of no tomorrows" (Joan Baez). "The Titanic sails at dawn" (Bob Dylan).
Many years ago I saw a cartoon showing a quaintly-dressed religious crank walking along the footpath with his placard, "The End is at hand!" - with his next step into an open manhole! With the change of times, it is no longer the religious cranks who say that!
So in the middle of God's judgment and their despair came the message of hope - a promise from God himself about something he would do. The prophet sees it so graphically. It is as if it has just happened - "to us a child is born, to us a son is given... The zeal of Lord Almighty will accomplish this."
Doom and gloom are very real. But, as we noted last week, God's judgment isn't his final word! His redeeming Love is - his rescue bid for the human race!
Listen to the way the Lord reasons with them - "Come now, let us reason together… Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (1.18).
At God's right time, something is going to happen - "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned… they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest… you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders…" (9.2-4). Something tremendously decisive will happen - not just another political ripple in the course of history. This time a Child, a Son - "Wonderful Counsellor," "Mighty God," "Everlasting Father," "Prince of Peace."
Jesus came at God's right time, born in human history, laid in a feed-box in Bethlehem. God's own Son is the promised Child. He is the focal point of solid hope both for the despairing of the eighth century BC and for those who despair at the beginning of the twenty-first century AD.
Jesus was "born to us" - not just for a particular family or a particular time of history, but "to us." Let us not lock this Good News from God into one season of the year and then hide it under all our cultural appendages to this season. Rather let us accept Jesus as God's gift to us, learning to live each day by faith not fear, by hope not despair, by love not self.
Prayer: Dear God, you did it! It's not just a story! You sent him for me! You gave your Son for me! Forgive me that I have regarded your gift so little, that I have shut up your gift to Christmas - or to Sundays! Let your life flow into my life every day of the year! And let your life flow through my life every day of the year! Thank you, God, for your incredible Gift! Amen!
Back to Christmas Sermons
Back to Sermons