The Child Of Promise
Sermon
The Presence In The Promise
First Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany Cycle C
Benjamin Britten's cantata "St. Nicholas" is based on the legendary figure of Nicolas, Bishop of Myra. If Nicolas was truly an historical figure and the Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor, he would have been bishop in the latter part of the fourth century or the early part of the fifth century. Traditionally, Nicolas is the patron saint of sailors and children. The legends built around him are especially attentive to his care for the poor and helpless. He is noted for having spent his fortune on the poor and needy. Striking legends were soon attached to his person and ministry. He is reported to have calmed the sea during a violent storm, and the ship on which he sailed was saved. One story has it that he rescued three daughters of a nobleman who were about to enter upon a life of sin until he threw three purses in their window. No story is more famous than "Nicolas and the Pickled Boys." Three boys had been hacked to death by a butcher and thrown into vats of brine. Nicolas raised the boys who were able to sing alleluias to their king.
Mythical or not, Nicolas became a forerunner of the fabled Santa Claus remembered so much in our homes this Christmas. In the cantata, Britten has Nicolas chant his dedication of himself in service to God. The reason for offering himself, he says, is because he was moved by the terrible plight of humanity. He moans that he has found man "doomed to die in everlasting fear of death: the foolish toy of time, the darling of decay." The remarkable confession Eric Crozier, the poet for the Britten cantata, placed on the lips of Nicolas is a profound theological insight. The Prophet Isaiah would have us begin this night with a reflection on our condition when God decided to send to us a Son.
Sitting In Darkness
When the Prophet Isaiah writes about "the people who walked in darkness," he means us. The prophet could cite all of humanity as being in the dark. That is what Britten meant in his cantata about humanity. When people live in the world on its own terms, they are "doomed to an everlasting fear of death" and are the chief "darlings of decay." If they fail to recognize the brutal facts about themselves and the world in which they live, they are the "foolish toys of time." For the moment in which he lived, the prophet meant the people who operated without the revelation which God is always willing to make for the sake of any people. We cannot be absolutely sure if Isaiah was talking about the revelation God was making with the enthronement of a new king in Judah, or if this was something to take place in the future with the enthronement of a king. It could also be that the prophet was thinking ahead to the time when an enthronement procedure would be followed in an inimitable way for a messianic figure who would resemble a regal Davidic figure.
In the light of what God has revealed in the person of the Holy Child at Bethlehem, we interpret what Isaiah was projecting for the people of his day as to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus. That is not to say that Isaiah did not have reference to a king enthroned in his day or one to be enthroned. However, what he does say about the revelation of God in a messianic figure was fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is important to note is that God makes this revelation for the sake of people who would otherwise be doomed to continue to walk in the dark. What this adds up to is that God was and is willing to reveal God's grace and goodness for the sake of all people at any and all times. Because we are included in the people of all times and all places being in the dark, we need to be alert to what God is doing for us when we contemplate anew the Birth of Jesus of Bethlehem.
The Great Light
The good news the Prophet Isaiah had for his people was that the revelation God makes for the people living in darkness is that God moves them into the light. He writes that the "people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in the land of deep darkness -- on them light has shined." It was Carl Sagan who did very much to popularize our understanding of the vastness of the creation and wanted so much our improved knowledge of the natural sciences to enlighten our general understanding and behavior in the creation. Mr. Sagan was born to a common home not likely to serve as an incubator for the sciences that occupied his entire career. However, as a youngster his curiosity about the lights in the heavens propelled him to pursue his scholarship in the sciences. Sagan's work, The Demon Haunted World, was a final bequest to us to warn against the superstitions, myths, and fables about the creation which haunt people. Dr. Sagan believed that science is the candle to offer light to put out the darkness created by false beliefs. We can be grateful for that. Luther would say that we should be thankful for all the scientists who help us to understand better the world in which we live. Luther would add we should bask in the light those learned people shine on us the same way the pigs, the cows, and the horses enjoy the same sunlight we enjoy.
However, the "great light" of which the prophet Isaiah writes is a light that is far more penetrating and meaningful than the important light of which Carl Sagan wrote. Isaiah means light in a much larger sense. This is the light that existed before the creation of light or the lights of the firmament. The "great light" is the revelation of God which is an enlightenment that enables us to see what the microscope and the telescope cannot reveal to us. Mr. Sagan would have limited his candle light to only what the sciences can establish as hard fact. Isaiah would see the larger light which illumines the hard facts of the perversity of human nature and the largeness of God's grace revealed in Jesus Christ. Those are not fables or superstitions. The perversity of the human condition underlies and underlines all of human history. The fullness of God's grace in Jesus Christ is written large in what happened in the life of that One who was willing to be born into the tempest of the human condition for our sakes. All of that is enlightening, and we cannot come to that purely by human reason. The light does not come on in the brightest of our own ideas that flash across our minds. The light comes from God. Jesus Christ is that Light.
Joy For The People
The Prophet Isaiah envisioned that the restoration of the throne of Judah with a faithful king would not only shed light on the people but would also bring joy to the people. He writes, "You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult with dividing the plunder." The prophet's description sounds like someone describing the glee of merchants at the successes of Christmas sales. A professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Stephen Nissenbaum, made a study of the joys of Christmas with his famous research titled The Battle for Christmas. He noted that the courts in Massachusetts in 1659 had to declare the celebration of Christmas a criminal offense, because of disorder caused by the reveling, begging, and general marauding that went on in the season. The battle for Christmas has gone on ever since. No doubt the Christmas malls have done well again in assuring people that they could purchase the joy of Christmas for themselves and their families.
However, that most certainly was not the observation of the prophet. The prophet was speaking of the joy that comes to God's people when God rules again in their lives. For him that was the restoration of a Davidic-type king. For us that joy comes when we permit God to rule in our hearts through the Son God sent into history to be our Lord and Savior. Christmas joy is created in our hearts at the prospect of what The Babe of Bethlehem was and is capable of doing for us. What we come to celebrate each Christmas is the renewal of our understanding of what God has accomplished for us by the sending of this Holy Child.
Facing The Enemies
Isaiah trusted that the return of a Davidic figure upon the throne meant that the people of Judah would be able to come out from under the burdens of their oppressors. He believed that the new king would serve as David had done in being that warrior king who was able to do battle for the people and vanquish their foes, roll up their equipment in blood and destroy their war gear in fire. For us the Davidic king has come to enable us to conquer all that would oppress, stifle, and harass us. The Lord Jesus Christ came that he might deal with the problems of our guilt and shame before God. On the cross our Lord would die to sin, that we might know that God does not look upon us as sinners but as those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. All the charges and accusations which could be used against us are cast into the fire.
In the same way the little Lord Jesus who came to us at Bethlehem would grow up to be that true person who would live under God in perfect obedience that he might demonstrate for us and live for us a life that is living proof that God can be believed. There is no way in which Jesus modeled a perfect life of ease. Rather his life was filled with tensions, tribulations, and temptations and ended in anything but worldly success. "He was a flop at thirty-three," sings one ditty about him. In the same way that Jesus could trust God all the way from the manger to the cross, we can trust God through all our trials and tribulations from the cradle to the grave.
The Son Is Given
The wonder of what the prophet envisions in the sending of the Davidic figure to be the new king sitting upon the throne of God's people is that he could be regarded as a brother. This would not be an invading king, an alien king, an outsider. Rather, "A child has been born for us," says the prophet, "a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." No one else fits this description by the prophet of a promised king as does the Holy Child of Bethlehem. Jesus is the one who in matchless ways and demeanor lived up to the kind of nomenclature the prophet chose to portray the One who came as a Second David to rule over all of humankind. He does not come simply as a king of Judah, a representative of God, but he is the Mighty God, who is the Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
What we celebrate this Christmas with special fervor is that the Mighty God, this Holy One who is Ruler over all, comes as the Holy Child. He has been born for us. He is a Son given to us. We can call him brother. In one of his Christmas cantatas Johann Sebastian Bach refers to Jesus as our Bruederlein, our "Baby Brother." Bach, who is one who understood the remarkable mystery of the incarnation, stated in the simplest terms the full impact of what God did in restoring innocence to humanity with the sending of this tiny brother to us. The full implication of what it was that he had to become our baby brother was that he might identify totally and completely with all that we have to face in the fullness of both life and death.
His Authority Grows
The prophet Isaiah was confident that the arrival of a Second David would ensure the growth of the people of God and endless peace for them. He wrote, "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom." Once again, there is no evidence of that happening within the annals of the Kingdom of Judah, but we know by faith that this is what our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Second David, has accomplished. Our Lord has established a kingdom of love and grace that includes all nations and tribes and extends over all the earth as an offer of citizenship to all who would believe that a gracious and loving God has redeemed and saved the creation and all its creatures through the Christ of Bethlehem.
When the prophet speaks of the endless peace that the Second David would establish for the throne of David, he adds that the new King would "establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore." What God had always intended that the throne of David should have been among the nations of the earth is now achieved throughout the nations of the earth by the Holy One, who sits at the right hand of the Father to rule over both heaven and earth until that day when he comes to judge all the nations of the earth in righteousness. What began so humbly and quietly at Bethlehem when God permitted God's Son to sneak into the history of humankind with the announcement by angels will come to that glorious climax when Jesus will return with all the holy angels to judge the world.
It's All About The Son
The Christmas Lesson taken from the Prophet Isaiah is well known to us all. It has been rehearsed for us in readings, songs, and prayers. What makes it so precious to us is the fact that so much is attributed to the person of that kingly Davidic figure who is our Lord Jesus Christ who comes to us as a Child. What is more important is that he is ours. We come this day to claim him again as our very own, and to have him as our own is to know and to have God in our hearts. One Christmas carol which captures that truth so poignantly is "Once In Royal David's City," sung with purity in the Service of Lessons and Carols each Christmas Eve in the King's Chapel at Cambridge, England. The third stanza of that hymn is particularly touching:
For he is our childhood's pattern,
Day by day like us he grew;
He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew:
And he feels for all our sadness,
And he shares in all our gladness.
In the Holy Child of Bethlehem not only the joy of Christmas is ours, but also he gives us joy to all eternity. Amen.
Mythical or not, Nicolas became a forerunner of the fabled Santa Claus remembered so much in our homes this Christmas. In the cantata, Britten has Nicolas chant his dedication of himself in service to God. The reason for offering himself, he says, is because he was moved by the terrible plight of humanity. He moans that he has found man "doomed to die in everlasting fear of death: the foolish toy of time, the darling of decay." The remarkable confession Eric Crozier, the poet for the Britten cantata, placed on the lips of Nicolas is a profound theological insight. The Prophet Isaiah would have us begin this night with a reflection on our condition when God decided to send to us a Son.
Sitting In Darkness
When the Prophet Isaiah writes about "the people who walked in darkness," he means us. The prophet could cite all of humanity as being in the dark. That is what Britten meant in his cantata about humanity. When people live in the world on its own terms, they are "doomed to an everlasting fear of death" and are the chief "darlings of decay." If they fail to recognize the brutal facts about themselves and the world in which they live, they are the "foolish toys of time." For the moment in which he lived, the prophet meant the people who operated without the revelation which God is always willing to make for the sake of any people. We cannot be absolutely sure if Isaiah was talking about the revelation God was making with the enthronement of a new king in Judah, or if this was something to take place in the future with the enthronement of a king. It could also be that the prophet was thinking ahead to the time when an enthronement procedure would be followed in an inimitable way for a messianic figure who would resemble a regal Davidic figure.
In the light of what God has revealed in the person of the Holy Child at Bethlehem, we interpret what Isaiah was projecting for the people of his day as to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus. That is not to say that Isaiah did not have reference to a king enthroned in his day or one to be enthroned. However, what he does say about the revelation of God in a messianic figure was fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is important to note is that God makes this revelation for the sake of people who would otherwise be doomed to continue to walk in the dark. What this adds up to is that God was and is willing to reveal God's grace and goodness for the sake of all people at any and all times. Because we are included in the people of all times and all places being in the dark, we need to be alert to what God is doing for us when we contemplate anew the Birth of Jesus of Bethlehem.
The Great Light
The good news the Prophet Isaiah had for his people was that the revelation God makes for the people living in darkness is that God moves them into the light. He writes that the "people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in the land of deep darkness -- on them light has shined." It was Carl Sagan who did very much to popularize our understanding of the vastness of the creation and wanted so much our improved knowledge of the natural sciences to enlighten our general understanding and behavior in the creation. Mr. Sagan was born to a common home not likely to serve as an incubator for the sciences that occupied his entire career. However, as a youngster his curiosity about the lights in the heavens propelled him to pursue his scholarship in the sciences. Sagan's work, The Demon Haunted World, was a final bequest to us to warn against the superstitions, myths, and fables about the creation which haunt people. Dr. Sagan believed that science is the candle to offer light to put out the darkness created by false beliefs. We can be grateful for that. Luther would say that we should be thankful for all the scientists who help us to understand better the world in which we live. Luther would add we should bask in the light those learned people shine on us the same way the pigs, the cows, and the horses enjoy the same sunlight we enjoy.
However, the "great light" of which the prophet Isaiah writes is a light that is far more penetrating and meaningful than the important light of which Carl Sagan wrote. Isaiah means light in a much larger sense. This is the light that existed before the creation of light or the lights of the firmament. The "great light" is the revelation of God which is an enlightenment that enables us to see what the microscope and the telescope cannot reveal to us. Mr. Sagan would have limited his candle light to only what the sciences can establish as hard fact. Isaiah would see the larger light which illumines the hard facts of the perversity of human nature and the largeness of God's grace revealed in Jesus Christ. Those are not fables or superstitions. The perversity of the human condition underlies and underlines all of human history. The fullness of God's grace in Jesus Christ is written large in what happened in the life of that One who was willing to be born into the tempest of the human condition for our sakes. All of that is enlightening, and we cannot come to that purely by human reason. The light does not come on in the brightest of our own ideas that flash across our minds. The light comes from God. Jesus Christ is that Light.
Joy For The People
The Prophet Isaiah envisioned that the restoration of the throne of Judah with a faithful king would not only shed light on the people but would also bring joy to the people. He writes, "You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult with dividing the plunder." The prophet's description sounds like someone describing the glee of merchants at the successes of Christmas sales. A professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Stephen Nissenbaum, made a study of the joys of Christmas with his famous research titled The Battle for Christmas. He noted that the courts in Massachusetts in 1659 had to declare the celebration of Christmas a criminal offense, because of disorder caused by the reveling, begging, and general marauding that went on in the season. The battle for Christmas has gone on ever since. No doubt the Christmas malls have done well again in assuring people that they could purchase the joy of Christmas for themselves and their families.
However, that most certainly was not the observation of the prophet. The prophet was speaking of the joy that comes to God's people when God rules again in their lives. For him that was the restoration of a Davidic-type king. For us that joy comes when we permit God to rule in our hearts through the Son God sent into history to be our Lord and Savior. Christmas joy is created in our hearts at the prospect of what The Babe of Bethlehem was and is capable of doing for us. What we come to celebrate each Christmas is the renewal of our understanding of what God has accomplished for us by the sending of this Holy Child.
Facing The Enemies
Isaiah trusted that the return of a Davidic figure upon the throne meant that the people of Judah would be able to come out from under the burdens of their oppressors. He believed that the new king would serve as David had done in being that warrior king who was able to do battle for the people and vanquish their foes, roll up their equipment in blood and destroy their war gear in fire. For us the Davidic king has come to enable us to conquer all that would oppress, stifle, and harass us. The Lord Jesus Christ came that he might deal with the problems of our guilt and shame before God. On the cross our Lord would die to sin, that we might know that God does not look upon us as sinners but as those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb. All the charges and accusations which could be used against us are cast into the fire.
In the same way the little Lord Jesus who came to us at Bethlehem would grow up to be that true person who would live under God in perfect obedience that he might demonstrate for us and live for us a life that is living proof that God can be believed. There is no way in which Jesus modeled a perfect life of ease. Rather his life was filled with tensions, tribulations, and temptations and ended in anything but worldly success. "He was a flop at thirty-three," sings one ditty about him. In the same way that Jesus could trust God all the way from the manger to the cross, we can trust God through all our trials and tribulations from the cradle to the grave.
The Son Is Given
The wonder of what the prophet envisions in the sending of the Davidic figure to be the new king sitting upon the throne of God's people is that he could be regarded as a brother. This would not be an invading king, an alien king, an outsider. Rather, "A child has been born for us," says the prophet, "a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." No one else fits this description by the prophet of a promised king as does the Holy Child of Bethlehem. Jesus is the one who in matchless ways and demeanor lived up to the kind of nomenclature the prophet chose to portray the One who came as a Second David to rule over all of humankind. He does not come simply as a king of Judah, a representative of God, but he is the Mighty God, who is the Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
What we celebrate this Christmas with special fervor is that the Mighty God, this Holy One who is Ruler over all, comes as the Holy Child. He has been born for us. He is a Son given to us. We can call him brother. In one of his Christmas cantatas Johann Sebastian Bach refers to Jesus as our Bruederlein, our "Baby Brother." Bach, who is one who understood the remarkable mystery of the incarnation, stated in the simplest terms the full impact of what God did in restoring innocence to humanity with the sending of this tiny brother to us. The full implication of what it was that he had to become our baby brother was that he might identify totally and completely with all that we have to face in the fullness of both life and death.
His Authority Grows
The prophet Isaiah was confident that the arrival of a Second David would ensure the growth of the people of God and endless peace for them. He wrote, "His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom." Once again, there is no evidence of that happening within the annals of the Kingdom of Judah, but we know by faith that this is what our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Second David, has accomplished. Our Lord has established a kingdom of love and grace that includes all nations and tribes and extends over all the earth as an offer of citizenship to all who would believe that a gracious and loving God has redeemed and saved the creation and all its creatures through the Christ of Bethlehem.
When the prophet speaks of the endless peace that the Second David would establish for the throne of David, he adds that the new King would "establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore." What God had always intended that the throne of David should have been among the nations of the earth is now achieved throughout the nations of the earth by the Holy One, who sits at the right hand of the Father to rule over both heaven and earth until that day when he comes to judge all the nations of the earth in righteousness. What began so humbly and quietly at Bethlehem when God permitted God's Son to sneak into the history of humankind with the announcement by angels will come to that glorious climax when Jesus will return with all the holy angels to judge the world.
It's All About The Son
The Christmas Lesson taken from the Prophet Isaiah is well known to us all. It has been rehearsed for us in readings, songs, and prayers. What makes it so precious to us is the fact that so much is attributed to the person of that kingly Davidic figure who is our Lord Jesus Christ who comes to us as a Child. What is more important is that he is ours. We come this day to claim him again as our very own, and to have him as our own is to know and to have God in our hearts. One Christmas carol which captures that truth so poignantly is "Once In Royal David's City," sung with purity in the Service of Lessons and Carols each Christmas Eve in the King's Chapel at Cambridge, England. The third stanza of that hymn is particularly touching:
For he is our childhood's pattern,
Day by day like us he grew;
He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew:
And he feels for all our sadness,
And he shares in all our gladness.
In the Holy Child of Bethlehem not only the joy of Christmas is ours, but also he gives us joy to all eternity. Amen.
