Isaiah 9:2-7
2 The people who walked in darkness have
seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light
has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they
rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing
plunder. 4 For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For all
the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be
burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For a child has been born for us, a son
given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 His authority
shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of
David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with
righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of
hosts will do this.
In 1741, George Frideric Handel
composed his masterpiece, a work often heard this time of year, his English
oratorio Messiah. The most
recognizable movement in Handel’s Messiah
comes at the end of Part II, Scene 7, the 44th movement; it’s the
“Hallelujah” chorus, a piece of music that has been used in countless movies,
television shows, advertisements, and the like. Second to the “Hallelujah”
chorus, though, may be the 11th and 12th movements of
Part I, Scene 3. Movement 11 begins with the first verse of our text this
morning (Handel uses the King James Version of the text): “The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them hath the light shined,” the words are sung by a
soloist, who repeats the refrain for just under three minutes. Movement 12 is
picked up by the full choir, and the text of verse 6 is sung: “For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be
upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The
mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” It’s a
beautiful piece of music, which Handel uses as an announcement of the
Christ-child’s arrival and an entry point into the nativity story and the
introduction of the shepherds in Scene 4.
These words from Isaiah 9, however,
were first given in a much different context. The prophet Isaiah is not
proclaiming the future birth of the Messiah, rather the prophet is making the
third proclamation involving the birth of a child as a sign that the present
oppression and strife of the people of Judah is about to end. You see, the
first (original) prophet Isaiah’s ministry took place during a most tenuous
time in the history of Judah (the Southern Kingdom of the formerly united
Israel): the Assyrians were the super-power at the time, and their reach was
tremendous. The northern kingdom of Israel had decided to align with kingdom of
Aram and sought Judah’s commitment in a revolt against Assyria. When the king
of Judah, Ahaz, chose to abstain from such an alignment and remain neutral in
the conflict, Israel and Aram turned their forces towards Jerusalem and Ahaz,
threatening to attack if they did not join the revolt against Assyria. The
people of Judah were between a rock and a hard place: either remain neutral in
an escalating conflict involving the very empire that controls their existence
and be attacked by an alliance including their own kin, or join that alliance
and almost certainly be wiped out. It is into this tension that the prophet
Isaiah speaks of a child being born—not once, but three times.
In Isaiah 7, the prophet says to
king Ahaz, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young
woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. He shall
eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the
good. For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good,
the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.” In other
words, the threat to Judah will be no more before a newborn child will be able
to tell the difference between right and wrong. Then, in Isaiah 8, the prophet
speaks of his own child as a sign of the sure end of threat from Aram and
Israel: “And I went to the prophetess, and she conceived and bore a son. Then the
Lord said to me, Name him Maher-shalal-hash-baz; for before the child knows how
to call ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the spoil of
Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria.” Before Isaiah’s own child
can say “momma” the threat will be no more.
The third of these prophecies
concerning the birth of a child comes in our text this morning: “For a
child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his
shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be
endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and
uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and
forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” The birth of
this child, this son, will signal the coming of peace, the reign of God, the
establishment of justice and righteousness…so when did all of this peace,
justice, and righteousness come?
Sure, Assyria would crush the
Israel/Aram uprising, but they would continue to oppress Judah, and then
Babylon would come, followed by the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. There’d be a
small glimmer of hope around the mid-second century B.C.E. when the Maccabean
Revolt would lead to the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty of Israel, but
it would be crushed by Pompey of Rome in 63 B.C.E. All that is to say, for all
of Isaiah’s prophesying of peace, justice, and righteousness, for all of his
pointing to the birth of a child as a sure sign of God’s coming reign, it never
seemed to show up. The people of Judah were terrified, unsure of the future,
and the prophet Isaiah gives them the sign of a baby—a baby! When there are armies
threatening your borders, allies turning against you, your future uncertain,
and your very life hangs in the balance, you don’t want someone to show you a
baby! You want see footage of soldiers marching in step, tanks rolling out onto
the battlefield, a sky filled with bombers, and a leader pounding the podium
sounding the cry for action—you don’t want to see a baby!
Of course, the same was true when
Mary first heard those words from Gabriel in Luke 1: "Do not be afraid,
Mary, for you have found favor with God. And
now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him
Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the
Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over
the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
The Jewish people were under the oppression of the Roman government; king Herod
(not of the line of David) was nothing more than a puppet for the Empire. There
had been a growing sense of anticipation surrounding the coming of God’s
deliverance, most especially with the recent memory of the Maccabean victory
and the number of so-called “messiahs” that cropped up all over Judea. The
people were waiting with bated breath for God’s anointed one to arrive and
finally bring the longed-for peace, justice, and righteousness the prophets of
old had proclaimed. They were scared, unsure of their future, always on the
edge of their seats, hoping for deliverance…then an angel comes to a nobody in
a backwater town and tells her she’s going to have a baby—a baby! When the
world is dark and there seems to be little hope left, you don’t want a baby to
be born! When tomorrow is uncertain, when the news is filled with more chaos,
confusion, and unrest, you don’t want to be told that a baby is going to fix it
all! No! You want aggressive legislation, a powerful proclamation of determined
might and strength, a sign that things will get better even if it takes extreme
force and the sacrifice of others’ lives. You don’t want a baby!
But that’s what we’ve got, a baby.
That’s what we celebrate this season: the birth of a baby. That’s who we’ll
celebrate tomorrow—a baby, born in a barn to unwed parents, surrounded by the
poor field workers and their unwashed flocks. That’s who we get, a baby—not a
conquering king, not a strongly worded piece of legislation, not a powerful
alliance sure to secure victory, not an army of countless soldiers, or an
earth-shaking deity with blazing eyes and lightning bolt in hand. A baby, a
fragile, helpless baby. Surely such a babe cannot stem the tide of war. Surely
a baby cannot bring peace and justice to a world twisted by greed and sin.
Surely a baby cannot bring the righteousness of the kingdom of God—a God who
made the universe and everything there was, is, or ever will be. Surely a baby
can’t save us…can it?
Tomorrow morning, most of us will
gather with family and friends around a tree in the living room, a table in the
dining room, or on various couches and chairs spread throughout our homes, and
we’ll open presents, share stories, laugh and cry at memories of loved ones no
longer with us. We’ll eat good food, share in family traditions, and maybe even
take a nap (or two). Most of us will have the luxury of forgetting about the
troubles of the world (at least for a day), but what happens next? What happens
after all the torn wrapping paper has been put in the trash can? What happens
after the leftovers are put in the fridge? What happens when friends and family
pile in their cars and head home? What happens when we take the decorations off
the tree and the wreath off the door?
Whatever darkness Christmas Day
seemed to hold back will slowly start to seep its way back into our worlds. The
weight of work will once again bend our backs; the news of war and devastation
will once again break our hearts; the stress of life and all that it entails
may once again begin to shrink our sense of purpose, our sense of hope, peace,
joy, and love. But even though the darkness may try to overtake us, a light
still shines. Even though weight of this life’s worries may try to bend us, One
still holds us up. Even though the evil, greed, selfishness, and sin of this
world may try to shatter our hearts, there is still One whose love holds us
together and calls us to hold one another up: a baby. A baby born to live, to
show the way of God’s kingdom through selfless sacrifice, a baby born to teach
us all that the ways of God are not the ways of this world, a baby born to
reveal to us that the very nature of God is not judgment, condemnation, or
wrath, but love, a baby born to die so that the world may know that God has
come to make a way where there once seemed to be no way, to cut through the
darkness with the everlasting light of love.
Whenever we think we need a soldier,
a conquering king, a divine warrior filled with power and might—we are given a
baby, because darkness is not overcome by power. Sin is not overcome by
strength. Selfishness and hate are not defeated by bombs or sheer force. No,
sin, self, hatred, and darkness can only be overcome by the power of
love—selfless love, born of God. It is the kind of love which seeks nothing in
return, nothing for itself. Love that seems to all others as weakness, as loss,
as powerlessness, it is that sort of love that pierces the darkness with its
light. It’s that sort of love that says to those seeking a sign, “For a
child has been born for us, a son given to us.” It is that sort of love
that we celebrate this season, that sort of love we celebrate today, that sort
of love whose birth we celebrate tomorrow. Whose life, death, and resurrection
calls us to let go of ourselves and take hold of that fragile, life-giving love
so that we may be the bringers of justice and righteousness, so that we may be
the bearers of hope, peace, joy, and love, so that we may be a great light in
the darkness. Amen.
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