Isaiah 52:7-10
7 How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!”
8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices;
together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion,
they will see it with their own eyes.
9 Burst into songs of joy together,
you ruins of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
10 The Lord will lay bare his holy arm
in the sight of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth will see
the salvation of our God.
The Christ-Child Reigns in Might and Mercy
Isn’t it weird how we celebrate Christmas? Christmas Eve is the big event. That’s when the kids sing. That’s when the visitors come. That’s when we blow the doors off with the organ. But what is Christmas Eve other than the day before the important day? Christmas Day is when we celebrate Jesus’ birth! If there’s ever a time when the seats should be packed and we shake the rafters with our rejoicing, it should be today. But that’s not the way it works.
Now, I’m not about to step onto my self-righteous soapbox and preach against the people who aren’t here today. The day we celebrate Jesus’ birth doesn’t matter. We don’t know when he was born, so we can celebrate it be December 24th or June 2 for that matter. The day doesn’t matter. That we worship does. So, let’s put aside any quibbling over dates for today, and instead think about what makes these two days different. Why do we have two services within 12 hours of each other?
Maybe an oversimplified answer could be that Jesus has two natures. He is both human and God. Last night was mostly about the human side of Jesus – how God worked through human history to bring Mary into this world and send Joseph to care for her so that God’s Son could take on human flesh and blood. Last night was about the manger and the shepherds and this baby boy born to bring peace to the earth.
Today is mostly about the divine side of Jesus. Sure, he may have looked like your ordinary baby; he was born under ordinary circumstances; he didn’t have wings or a fiery aura around him or legs like bronze. To see him you wouldn’t suspect that there’s anything special about him. But today, with every one of our Bible Lessons we see how Jesus is so much more that what he seems.
That long passage from Hebrews goes on at great length about Jesus’ superiority. He may have looked like a lowly baby on Christmas Day, but he is greater than the angels, worthy of our worship, the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. In other words, the Son of Mary, really is the Son of God. He is fully God, without any exception or caveat.
John’s Gospel says something similar. Whereas Matthew and Luke both begin with Jesus’ human ancestry, John begins with the divine. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John gives us a peak behind the curtain of what Jesus was up to before that was his name. We see him at Creation wielding God’s almighty power. He’s described as the light that shines in the darkness - all as a reminder that he is far more than just a baby in a manger.
But what I’d really like to spend some time thinking about this morning is what Isaiah writes in the 52nd chapter of his prophecy, because it serves kind of like the bridge between the human and the divine.
If Jesus is the Word that was with God and is God, if Jesus is begotten of the Father from eternity as we confess in the Nicene Creed, then that means that for the vast majority of human history, the pre-incarnate Christ – Jesus, before his birth – was invisible to the human eye. He existed. He was active. You could even make some sanctified speculation about Jesus appearing to human beings in the form of the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament. But Isaiah makes a promise that in his day would have been unbelievable:
The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
All the ends of the earth will see him. The immortal, invisible, all-holy God confined himself to the very real body of a baby boy. As John puts it in his Gospel, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” That’s the miracle of the incarnation – Jesus in human flesh and blood – both God and man in one.
And Isaiah tells us why: “When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.”
Isaiah speaks of Zion and the ruins of Jerusalem. He’s writing to real people at a real moment in true history. The Jews had been defeated by the Babylonians. Their cities and towns were destroyed, not least of all their capital city and the home of the Temple of God. They were living in exile and longed to return home.
To these people Isaiah speaks of comfort and joy, but not so much in terms of restoration as redemption. Isaiah isn’t making the promise that Jerusalem would be rebuilt and the Jews would return to autonomy. He’s talking about forgiveness for our sins.
That’s why Jerusalem was in ruins to begin with. Prophets like Isaiah repeatedly warned the people to repent and return to the Lord, but they didn’t listen. They put it off. They scoffed at the notion that there was anything in their lives that needed changing, so they didn’t, and they suffered because of it.
In that context, when you hear Isaiah say that the Lord will lay bare his holy arm, it’s kind of a scary picture. What is he rolling up his sleeves to do? Strike the sinner down? No, Isaiah says that he brings salvation to the ends of the earth.
What a God we have! When he sees people ruined by their own sinfulness – when he looks at us who are scarcely better than the people of Isaiah’s day – he doesn’t find creative ways to punish us. He doesn’t delight in striking us down. Instead he uses his considerable power to save us.
Think about that for a second. John tells us that Jesus created the universe; he has almighty power! All he has to do is say the word, and it happens. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is greater than the angels. And what does he spend that power and might to do? To save you.
He didn’t look like much, lying in the manger, but that baby was the true Son of God sent on a mission of mercy to forgive your sins and give you eternal life in his name. Imagine what he could have done with all that power. He could have brought peace between nations. He could have done away with war. He could have reversed famine and poverty. He could have cured all diseases with the snap of his fingers. But what was more important – and much more difficult – than all that was your salvation, i.e. taking up human flesh and blood, to live and die for your sins, and to rise again to give you life forever.
That’s why the Son of God was born of Mary. That’s why Peace came to earth at last that chosen night. That’s why we rejoice when we see the feet of those who bring good news. Because Jesus reigns supreme. In might and mercy he has won your salvation. Rejoice this Christmas morn and on whatever day you remember God in man made manifest. Amen.