Christmas 1
Isa
11:1-5
12/30/18
C'Mon Man! If you have ever watched the ESPN Monday
Night Countdown show that precedes Monday night football, you will recognize
this expression and what it means. First
introduced in 2008, each of the hosts shows a video segment from a football game
that week. In all of them, players, coaches,
and even fans, are making dumb mistakes and doing things that just make no
sense. At the end of each segment after
the host has described the error, he adds, “C'Mon Man!” This is, I should add,
one of Michael’s favorites.
On this First Sunday
after Christmas we hear the prophet Isaiah provide a description of the
Messiah. He speaks about a figure
endowed with the Spirit of Yahweh who knows what is right. He judges in righteousness and fairness for
all – including the poor and weak. And
he executes mighty judgment against the wicked.
Yet when you consider
this description and compare it to the One whose birth we are celebrating
during this season of Christmas, it makes you want to say, “C'Mon Man!” Jesus
is a helpless baby in manger. He is not
at his parents’ home because the real world ruler, Caesar Augustus, has ordered
a census and they had to obey. Jesus
lives in the world that Caesar runs. And speaking of running, very soon his
parents will flee to Egypt with Jesus in order to save his life from a petty
king under Augustus’ thumb, Herod the Great. The words of Isaiah 11 applied to
this? “C'Mon Man!”
I have always had a deep
appreciation for this First Sunday after Christmas. The season of Advent is filled with so much
activity and anticipation as we get ready for Christmas. Then, there is the Christmas Eve
service. The chancel area is decked out
with poinsettias and the lit Christmas tree.
We sing the joyous hymns of Christmas that are so dear to us. We hear the reading of the Christmas Gospel,
adorned with a Gospel processional. And
then at the conclusion of the service there is the singing of Silent Night as
the darkened church is lit by candles.
Before we return to church the next day, the presents that have
attracted so much attention under the Christmas tree, have been opened that
evening or in the morning. And then the
Christmas Day service follows with its own warm reverence.
We do all of this, and
then the next Sunday rolls around. The
First Sunday after Christmas arrives.
All of the hoopla, and nothing has really changed. And if that is true for us, we are reminded
that it was all the more true for Mary and Joseph. The birth of Jesus was a great event. That is true of the birth of any baby. Then the shepherds visited at the prompting
of an angel on that first Christmas Eve.
But on the Sunday after his birth, there was just a baby for whom they
now needed to care. There was just the work of providing for a tiny, helpless
infant who was unable to do anything for himself.
When we hear the words
of our text, and consider the infant in Bethlehem there appears to be a great
disconnect. A shoot from the stump of
Jesse? Well, ok, this is a descendant of
David through Joseph, and he was born in Bethlehem the city of David. But what about Isaiah’s words?: “He shall not judge by what his eyes
see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall
judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall
strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he
shall kill the wicked.”
The last
part of that text – about striking the earth with the rod of his mouth and
killing the wicked with the breath of his lips – was one of the most quoted
statements about the Messiah when Jews spoke about him in the second temple
period. It’s not hard to understand why
this is so. Isn’t that what we want out
of Jesus? We want him to act in might
and power to defeat the enemies of his people – to vindicate those who believe
in him in the midst of this increasingly hostile world.
If Jesus
doesn’t seem like the fulfillment of our text from Isaiah a week after
Christmas, then he certainly doesn’t
at the end of his life some three decades later. The only thing that rested upon him was a
crown of thorns. He was the One who was judged by a Roman governor who knew he
was not deciding righteously or equitably as he condemned an innocent man to
death. He was the One who was killed by
the wicked as the last breath left his lips.
There are
times when Jesus is not the Christ we want. We think that we don’t want a
Christ who allows suffering and hardships to enter our lives. We don’t want a Christ who seems to be either
unable or unwilling to solve right now
the problems that are troubling me.
After all, if he were really the Christ – the kind of Christ I want – then that’s what he would do.
But
Isaiah’s words teach us that God works in ways that we don’t expect. He works in ways that are really the opposite
of what they appear. The prophet begins
by saying, “There shall come forth a
shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” Isaiah wrote in the eighth century B.C. The Assyrian had swept down on Palestine.
They had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, destroyed its capital of
Samaria, and take the people into exile.
But they hadn’t stopped there, they had continued south as they took one
fortified position in Judah after another.
Inevitably, they would set their sights on Jerusalem as they planned on
doing the same thing to the southern kingdom.
The kingdom that arisen under David’s
rule had been chopped down. But when it
appeared that there was no hope, Isaiah said, “There
shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots
shall bear fruit.” God was not done with
David’s line. In chapter nine Isaiah had
already talked about this One. As we
heard on Christmas Eve, he said: “For
to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his
shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will
be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing
and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.”
By all
appearances, in the first century A.D. these words could not have sounded more
hollow. But then, God sent the angel
Gabriel to the virgin Mary to tell her that she would conceive a baby in her
womb through the work of the Holy Spirit.
He ordered Joseph, a descendant of David, that he was to take this
divinely conceived child to be his own, and to make him part of the line of
King David.
Born in the
city of David, Jesus did not appear to be anything special – just another
Jewish baby born into subjugation to Rome. His parents had to take him out of
Israel into Egypt in order to rescue him from death. Yet no matter how things appeared, God was at
work in all of this to fulfill his word – in the conception by a virgin; in the
birth in Bethlehem; in the flight to Egypt.
In two
weeks we will celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. When Jesus had grown to be a man, he went to
receive the baptism administered by John the Baptist. There as he emerged from the water he was
anointed with the Holy Spirit. The words
of our text were fulfilled: “And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the
Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.”
Anointed
with the Spirit, Jesus went forth as the One whose delight was the fear of the
Lord. It was his will to do the Father’s
will. And so he made his way to the cross.
He did not look to his own interests, but instead he died on the cross
to redeem you from sin. Good Friday appeared
to be weakness and failure, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
For by that death in our place, he won the forgiveness of
sins. And by his resurrection on the third day he defeated death itself.
After
fulfilling the Father’s will, our risen Lord ascended into heaven. He has been enthroned at the right hand of
God, and on Pentecost he poured forth the Spirit upon his Church. The Holy
Spirit caused you to be born again in Holy Baptism. Now through the Spirit’s work you have wisdom
and understanding. As new man in Christ,
you have knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
The old
Adam in you doesn’t want to see what I have just described. He looks at the
baby Jesus, at Jesus on the cross and at your life and says, “C'Mon Man!”
But as we listen to God’s Word the Spirit leads us to tell the old Adam
to shut up, for instead we understand that with God the reality is far more
than the appearance. And because this
was true in Jesus Christ, we can trust that God’s love and care for us continues
in the present no matter what things look like.
The reality of God’s
work is far greater than its appearance. The final confirmation of this fact
will take place on the Last Day. For the ascended Lord who defeated death in
his resurrection will return in glory.
And when he does we will all rejoice to see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s
words as Jesus Christ pronounces the final judgment righteously and with all
power. He will declare us to be
righteous because of his saving work. He
will vindicate us before all and demonstrate that the reality of God’s work in
Christ has always been far, far more than it appeared to be.
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