There are so many things in life we either tend to ignore or simply take for granted – leaders, for example. We may not always respect leaders at a personal level, but Paul in his First Letter to Timothy writes: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high places, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way… (1 Timothy 2:1-3).
Good and upright leaders are rare. We need to pray for wisdom and discernment when it comes to elections. That said, because no leader is perfect, most people (as every election shows) long for a leader who will use their position to provide for the security and welfare of the nation.
Isaiah. When we look back to the history of Israel we learn that the prophets spoke of a special leader whom God would send. For example, in Isaiah 1-39, we read of God’s condemnation of the people’s self-worship and their disregard of him. Isaiah had warned of God’s judgement and in 586BC the Babylonians demolished Jerusalem and took its people captive. But Isaiah is not all negative, for he opens a window on something new God planned to do – through a special king.
In Isaiah 61 we read: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me;… Isaiah 61 continues by telling us what this Spirit-led figure will do: He has come to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; And the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn… (61:1b-2).
Jesus. It is in the New Testament that we see the real significance of these words. For in Luke 4:17-19 we read that Jesus, as guest speaker in the synagogue in Nazareth, opened the scroll of the book of Isaiah at chapter 61. He read: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me,… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Period. Full stop.
Jesus didn’t complete Isaiah’s words, “…and the day of vengeance of our God.” Significantly he went on to comment: “Today these words are being fulfilled in your midst”.
By putting a period/full stop to Isaiah’s words, Jesus was indicating that there would be two stages to the day of the Lord – the day of favor, and the day of justice. His first coming was the time of God’s rescue operation. His second coming would be the time of God’s judgment.
It’s important we notice how Jesus applies Isaiah’s words in his public ministry: he says he has come to the aid of the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed.
When did Jesus do this? After all he did not provide food and clothing for all the needy around him; he did not release any prisoners, not even John the Baptist.
In exploring the use of words like poor, blind, captive and mourn in the pages of Isaiah and the Old Testamentas a whole, we see that these words are often used as metaphors. The poor is often a reference to those who are spiritually poor, the blind, those who are spiritually blind, and the captives, those who are captive to self, sin and death. Those who mourn are aware of their broken relationship with God as well as the brokenness of the nation in its relationship with God.
However, there were times when Jesus literally fulfilled Isaiah’s words. He did feed people who were hungry; he did give sight to some who were blind; and he did release people who were captive to the powers of evil. In each instance the miracle is a picture of God’s compassion and his ultimate purpose to provide life in all its fullness and freedom for his people.
By reading from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue in Nazareth that day, Jesus assumed the mantle of the anointed servant-king of Isaiah’s vision. He was announcing that the final great era of God’s mercy had dawned.
Yes, he introduced a tension between the is and the yet to be of God’s rule, but it is a tension we need to work with, for it is God’s plan. How important it is that we live with this tension in our lives. Many around us have thrown God out of the equation of life and see political power and their world-view as the solution to the world’s ills – of which there are many. The day will come when Jesus Christ will return in all his kingly glory.
For now we have a part to play, testifying through the integrity of our lives and the words of our lips to what we believe. At the same time we have Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:1-4: I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high places, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Because cities are sometimes synonymous with evil and corruption, poverty and injustice, we tend to overlook the significance of the City of Zion or the heavenly Jerusalem of which the Bible speaks.
In Isaiah 60 we read: Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn (Isaiah 60:1-3).
Isaiah was speaking first to the Jewish people whose city had been destroyed in 586BC and who were exiled in Babylon. Here he assures them that their darkness and despair would give way to light and hope, for God would establish his City.
Historically Isaiah’s words were fulfilled when in 520BC Cyrus the Mede who had defeated the Babylonians, decreed that the Jewish exiles be permitted to return to Jerusalem and rebuild it.
But Isaiah was also pointing to a time when God’s rule would come down to earth: God would bring in a whole new order, a new creation. He speaks of the time of God’s righteous reign and the glory of a new and lasting city where God himself would fill the city with the light of this presence.
In Genesis 1 we read that thick darkness covered the earth, but God’s light overcame it. Here in Isaiah 60 darkness is a metaphor for moral evil and spiritual blindness. Light is a picture of God’s coming to rescue his people.
Furthermore, God’s light will shine world-wide: Nations shall come to your light (60:3), and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Those who refuse to turn to God will perish (60:12).
It is one of the ironies of history that the power of Rome that crucified Jesus in the first century, capitulated to him in the fourth, when the emperor Constantine was baptized. Human kingdoms will fail and, while they might amass wealth, they will lay it down again at the feet of the King of kings.
Isaiah’s words are inspiring and encouraging. But how much more should they encourage us, who live on the other side of the coming of God’s King. With his coming we see in greater detail that God’s reign amongst his people happens in two stages – Stage 1, with the incarnation of God’s Son, the Messiah, a descendent of King David; Stage 2, with the return of the King, Jesus, in all his majestic glory.
A future city. At one level we see that Jerusalem is a city of bricks and mortar — a city in history. At another level we see Zion as a glorious everlasting City with its inhabitants gathered by God to be with him forever: You shall know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob (60:16).
There are times in life when we are tempted to ask, ‘What’s the point of going on? What’s the point of raising a family? What’s the point of praying and going to church? Whatever I do is pointless.’
By way of answer, Isaiah uses the language of the first city of Jerusalem to point us to our ultimate destiny. Believing people from all ages, from all nations, will one day be beneficiaries of God’s promises to Abraham, Moses and David. People will be drawn from every generation, from every corner of the world to be with him in the City he has created.
Revelation 21:1-3 picks up the imagery: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God…”
This is our destiny — a City, a new Jerusalem, with countless throngs of people; a City where there will be meaningful relationships and social structure, and even work to do; a city where there will be no more grief; and above all, a city where God himself will be seen to be with his people. It is an awesome and exciting picture.
But we need to be realistic: God’s new Jerusalem will only be brought in through his intervention. The new city lies on the other side of a cosmic discontinuity which God must bring about. Only then will his people be delivered from the tragic consequences of the present world.
In this meantime we need to be biblical followers of Jesus Christ. What we do in this world has significance; what we do in this world can change things; what we do in the service of Christ in this world lasts. When we know that, we know why we work, why we try to improve the world: all of our work has a place in God’s new order and will be made a part of the City that he will build.
This is the hope Isaiah encourages us to embrace when he says, Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Ernest Becker in his 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning, The Denial of Death, a book that continues to command respect, focuses on a human paradox: death is a reality, but we deny it. In our attempt to achieve immortality, he says, we all adopt what he calls a heroic strategy – which inevitably fails.
From a perspective of Psychology and Philosophy he comments, ‘Psychology narrows the cause for personal unhappiness down to the person himself, and then is stuck with himself… All the analysis in the world doesn’t allow the person to find out who he is and why he is here on earth, why he has to die, and how he can make his life a triumph. It is when psychology pretends to do this that it becomes a fraud… Thus, the plight of modern man: a sinner with no word for it.’
He observes that religion is an illusion that provides help for some. He says, ‘Religion takes one’s creatureliness, one’s insignificance, and makes it a condition of hope… What is the ideal for mental health, then?’ he asks. ‘A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality… As an ideal, Christianity,… stands high, perhaps even the highest in some vital ways, as people like Kierkegaard, Chesterton, the Niehbuhrs, and so many others have compellingly argued’.
It’s not my purpose to analyze Becker’s thesis, but rather to respond to his view that Christianity, at best, is still an illusion. And to do this, let me take up Isaiah’s words that go to the heart of the human predicament. Handel brilliantly set them to music in his Messiah:All we like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned to our own way,… (Isaiah 53:6a).
Guilt. It is an uncompromising statement of the objective nature of human guilt. But these days we disagree. We explain guilt more in terms of feelings that need to be addressed on the couch of the psychiatrist rather than as sin to be confessed to God. If we have any sense of sin today it’s our sense of failure to live up to our own expectations.
So guilt is more an experience within us, a feeling we have to cope with somehow, like anxiety.
God. That said, it is important that we ask how God views us. The story is told of an occasion when at the High Table of a London University College, the philosopher, C.E.M. Joad was asked, ‘Tell me, what do you think of God?’ To which he replied, ‘My greater concern is what God thinks of me’.
Isaiah says, All we like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned to our own way.All – that’s everyone of us. Not men as opposed to women; not white as opposed to colored; not rich as opposed to poor; not the West as opposed to the East.
Nor is it that we have collectively gone astray. Certainly that is true, but the point is that each one of us individually has strayed from truly loving and honoring God and loving our neighbor. As the Prayer Book ‘Confession’ puts it: we have erred and strayed like lost sheep. Following too much the devices and the desires of our own hearts we have broken God’s holy laws, and there is no health in us.
So what has God done? He could have extinguished us forever, but that would have meant he had failed in creating us in his image. He could have made us robots, but that would have eliminated an important principle in our design, namely choice. God did neither of these things. Instead, as Isaiah tells us, he chose another way, a costly way: the Lord has laid on him (his Servant) the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6b).
If ever a tragedy, or suffering, demanded an explanation, it is Jesus’ death on the cross. As Isaiah predicted, Jesus didn’t utter a word. Like a sheep being led to the slaughter, he was taken to his death. Why didn’t he come down from the cross?
When we look at Jesus’ death through the lens of the New Testament we have a clearer picture. In Colossians 1:19-20 we read: For in him (Christ Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. When Christ died, God came to terms with our failure, accepting the pain of our sin, accepting the penalty of our sin, and bearing in himself our sins in his body on the tree.
Isaiah 53:10b prophesied concerning God’s Servant: He will make his life an offering for sin,… (53:10b). And Isaiah continues: He shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. The Servant will see his offspring: He will live and be exalted.
The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, witnessed by hundreds (1 Corinthians 15:6), authenticates God’s intervention in human affairs. Clearly there is more to our existence than the material world and the form in which we find ourselves. Christianity is not an illusion. It gives us meaning and hope.
There are many things in life that baffle and trouble us. If God is almighty and all loving, why does he allow pain and suffering, evil and injustice to run riot through the world? Why does God allow us as individuals to go through so many of the things we do?
If we are to understand the trauma and trials of life, we need more than human wisdom and understanding. Abraham Lincoln once remarked: I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.
Wisdom. When the Bible speaks of wisdom it speaks of the complex matrix of intelligence, knowledge and power within a moral framework working together towards a good outcome.
Wisdom is the practical side of moral goodness. Because God alone is good, and because he alone has the power always to achieve his goals, his ways are always wise. Wisdom is an essential part of God’s character.
Isaiah 42:21 through 43:7 provides us with two scenes of God’s wisdom. The first speaks of tough times and God’s justice. The second speaks of peace and contains some of the most tender words of God’s love.
The first scene portrays God’s people in exile in Babylon. Like genuine refugees today, they were rootless, homeless, and friendless in a foreign land. But far greater than their personal loss was their sense that God had deserted them. They hadn’t believed prophets like Jeremiah; rather, they had preferred to listen to the popular preachers in Jerusalem who had told them that all would be well.
But it wasn’t. In 586BC their city had been destroyed, the temple demolished, and they had been deported. In Isaiah 42:24 we read: Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler, and Israel to the robbers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? Where was this only wise God?
Yet against all the odds, God’s ancient people survived. Indeed, no passage of the Bible expresses the renaissance of these people more clearly than Isaiah 43:1-7. It’s a picture of God’s love – an example of God’s infinite wisdom and power at work. It’s worth pausing to read it.
Which brings us to the second scene.
Fear not. Isaiah 43:1 says, This is what the Lord said,he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
Isaiah tells us that God took the growing embryo of our lives and shaped them according to his good and wise purposes. But more than that, he redeemed us. For even though we have denied him and sought our independence from him, he bought us, even at great cost to himself.
We find this picture emerging in the Old Testament where he rescued the slaves in Egypt and shaped them into a nation; where he returned the exiles in Babylon to Jerusalem and re-instated them as a people. But we see the greatest picture of God’s redemption when we turn to the New Testament. There we read that he has not only created us but that he has also redeemed us through the death of his one and only Son.
As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 1:18 and, especially verses 24b and 25: Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser that human wisdom, and God’s weakness stronger than human strength. Jesus’ crucifixion seems foolish to world, but God in his infinite wisdom planned it.
Presence. God has not just redeemed his people. He promises to be personally present with us. In Isaiah 43:2 we read: When you pass through the waters I will be with you;…
It’s important to notice that God does not promise that his people will be immune from tough times. God says when not if. Furthermore he speaks of his people passing through the waters not over the waters.
For the people of Isaiah’s day it meant that God would be with them in the land of exile. For us who live on the other side of Jesus’ cross and resurrection, it’s an even richer statement, for we find that God has come amongst us in our pain and has participated in it.
This is the meaning of the manger in Bethlehem, and the cross outside Jerusalem. Christianity is not about a God who emails us sympathy notes. Rather he bore our sin and carried our sorrow. He descended to the lowest parts of the earth to rescue us. Immanuel: God is with us.
No other religion comes near this – a God who comes into a suffering world and suffers with us; a God who comes into the world and dies for us; a God who comes into the world and becomes a curse on our behalf. No other religion has even dreamed of this, let alone actioned it.
God wasn’t just satisfying some passing whim when he created and redeemed us. His plan and purpose, which he has been working out through history, is to establish a people who love him and glorify him.
An op-ed in The Australian on Christmas Eve (12/24/18) referenced a recent lecture by the American scholar George Weigel who ‘argues that Christianity, including the values highlighted at Christmas, has an important role to play in revitalizing democratic, market-oriented societies’. The article continued, ‘These are struggling on both sides of the Atlantic and elsewhere, including Australia, producing unrest, instability and disillusionment.’
‘If free politics and free economics are to produce a genuine human flourishing, Weigel says, the strength of the public moral culture, flourishing institutions that earn public confidence and a concern for the common good are vital. Christmas offers a chance to reflect on such issues and to take stock of the bigger picture…’
While it is not my purpose here to explore the relationship between Christianity and politics and a free-market economy, it is worth noting that the article is similar to a number of articles this year that call for a reawakening of the meaning and application of the Christmas story. Articles like this invite us to focus on the themes of the poverty and weakness, the love and compassion embedded in the birth of Jesus – all of which are true. But they are not nearly the full story of God coming in person to rescue us.
Indeed, as we reflect on the Gospel accounts of Jesus for our own benefit, it is also worth thinking through unexpected ways we can weave the larger story of Jesus’ birth into our conversation. It’s worth keeping in mind the surprising way God works and the diversity of people his plan includes – non-Jewish peoples as well as Jewish.
Consider, for example, Matthew’s account of the Magi who visited the baby Jesus from afar to bring him gifts and worship him. In Matthew 1 we learn that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the town where Jacob had buried Rachel and where King David was born. Known from that time as the City of David, the prophet Micah spoke of Bethlehem as the place where God’s Messiah would be born (Micah 5:2).
The legends that have developed around the magi from the East following a star and visiting the baby Jesus in Bethlehem shroud the veracity and the surprise of Matthew’s account. There is no mention in Matthew of the number of the wise men who visited Jesus, and we are not told whether they were kings. Furthermore, we are not told their names. Who then were these people who travelled so far?
The Magi werea tribe of priests in ancient Persia and were known for their study in astrology – making predictions from the stars. In the ancient world the movement of the stars and the planets was understood to frame the orderly pattern of the universe. Any interruption to this was seen to mark some new significant event that would impact the human story.
Piecing together astronomical studies of the past, it seems that the Magi observed a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that occurred in 7BC around the time Jesus was born. In an age before telescopes, the conjunction would have given the appearance of a very bright star which some of them followed. Coming from Persia where the Jewish people had been in exile in the 6th century BC they would have known the Jewish Scriptures which include the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24:17: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;…
The conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter occurred three times in in 7BC, suggesting that when it had first appeared the Magi travelled westward to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. Given the distance they would have arrived there about the time of the third planetary conjunction. It was when they were in Jerusalem that they learned of the baby’s birth in Bethlehem – as Micah had foretold.
Matthew tells us, Going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh (Matthew 2:11).
Their gifts were prophetic: gold, a gift for a king – the greatest king lay before them; frankincense, used by the priests – the greatest priest was the one they saw; myrrh, for the burial of the dead – this baby, born to be king would be crowned through his suffering on a cross. Significantly, and to us surprisingly these highly respected, wise, non-Jewish men fell on their knees and worshipped this baby.
At the time when Matthew wrote this Gospel account, non-Jewish peoples from across the known world were coming to the crucified and risen Jesus as their king and savior. Matthew here is highlighting yet another facet of the fulfillment of the prophetic promise concerning God’s King: Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn… (Isaiah 60:3).
Articles that call for our world to revisit the Christmas story are a fresh illustration of the way Jesus Christ fulfills Isaiah’s words. They give us the opportunity to take people back to the true story revealed in the Gospels. Are you praying for such opportunities and working at ways to use them?
You may want to check out 3 Modules re ‘Outreach’ on the Anglican Connection website. The Modules have been drawn from seminars I have been giving in various cities this year. Here is the link: https://anglicanconnection.com/outreach-christmas-beyond/
