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Our Deliverer Comes

          Hezekiah thought to himself, “Why not?”  After all he was king over the tiny nation of Judah, and if he wanted to show off the Fort Knox-like treasury of Judah to visiting big shots from Babylon, that was his prerogative and, he figured, a pretty slick political move.  His tiny kingdom needed all the help it could get.  Ever since that superpower Assyria started breathing down Judah’s neck, the country had shrunk in size.  Its territory covered no more space than the land from Mequon to Cudahy and from the Lake to Waukesha.  “So,” Hezekiah thought, “since we need allies, why not show off a little of our wealth to these Babylonian dignitaries.  Their country is no superpower and too far away to be a threat to us.  But if they are impressed with our friendliness, they might help us by kicking up their heels against Assyria and force Assyria into a two-front war.”

            At the time, Hezekiah did not realize his mistake.  By wooing Babylon as an ally, he demonstrated a lack of trust in God’s promises of protection.  But the king wasn’t the only one in Israel who was spiritually weak.  The nation as a whole had been invited by God to put its feet under his spiritual banquet table but had been playing footsie with idols.  In fact, some of the rulers and citizens had become so hard-hearted that they were ready to spit in God’s eye.

            To such a king and to such a people God sent Isaiah the prophet with a stern warning, “Look out!  The Lord is going to teach you a lesson.  He’s not going to allow Assyria to harm you, but he will allow the Babylonians to do big damage.”  The Israelites responded with mockery, “Get out of here, Isaiah!  You gotta be kidding.  It’s the Assyrians we have to worry about.   The Babylonians are harmless!”  But one hundred fifty years later the Babylonians had gained superpower status, attacked Judah, and carried out a mass deportation.  Whom did they leave behind in Judah?  The aged and the infirm, the dying and the diseased, the lame and the lepers.  What hope was there that this chosen nation would remain in tact so that the promised Messiah-Savior could be born from it?  Zero!

            Then some of those stragglers and misfits who remained in Judah sifted through the rubble of Jerusalem, found Isaiah’s one hundred fifty-year old book, blew off the dust, and read this amazing news, news which still forms the basis for our Christmas celebration; Our Deliverer Comes.

Giving peace

            After wiping out Jerusalem in 586 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army had no reason to launch another attack against Judah.  There was nothing left there to conquer – no wealthy city treasury, no cattle ranches with lots of animals, no fertile farmlands, no verdant vineyards.  But the few scraggly scroungers left in Judah did not know that Nebuchadnezzar planned no further attack.  They feared for their lives every moment of every day.  “Who knows when the next wave of Babylonian warlords will come swooping over the hills?”  As people roamed the hillsides looking for a few grapes, they kept glancing over their shoulders.  As they milked the few goats they had, they kept peeking around to see, “Maybe an enemy soldier or desert raider will come stealing into camp?  You never can be too sure.”  When they heard a rumbling noise in the distance, their first thought was not, “That must be thunder!”  No!  Their thought was, “That must be hoofbeats and the rumble of Babylonian chariots!”  They had no rest, no peace of mind.

            But Isaiah said, “God is going to change all that,” and change it he did.  Picture two Israelites serving as watchmen on the broken remains of Jerusalem’s walls.  One says, “Look!  There’s a messenger coming.  You can see him on the distant hills.  I wonder what kind of news he will bring.”  The other replies, “He’s probably going to tell us that the taxes are going up.  Maybe he’s got news that our relatives in captivity have been executed.  Or maybe he’ll tell us that Nebuchadnezzar is coming back with another attack.”  “No!  That can’t be,” said the first man, “The messenger is running and jumping!  He’s happy!  Hey!  He must have good news.  Let’s ask him.  Here he comes.”

            Gasping, the messenger spits out five phrases, “Good news ... peace ... good tidings ... salvation ... Your God reigns!”  The two Israelites said in chorus, “Wow!  We can hardly believe it!  How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.  Think of it.  We may not have a king sitting on a throne in Jerusalem, but God reigns!  The Babylonians might come to start another war, but we are at peace with God.  He still loves us in spite of our sin and rebellion.  He will still use our nation to bring the Savior-Messiah into the world.  Yes, God is our Deliverer.  He comes giving peace!”

            The Iraqis, Turks, Iranians, Pakistanis, and Afghans may one day get along so that our troops can come home.  Palestinians and Israelis may one day stop shooting each other.  But that’s not what the angels meant when they sang, “Peace on earth” (Luke 2:14).  The angels’ message has nothing to do with treaties, armistice, or the end of hostilities between warring nations, nor anything to do with halting a backyard feud long enough to exchange Stollen.  The angels were proclaiming what Isaiah announced, peace from God to sinners, sinners like us.  “A Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord”(Luke 2:11).  Do you want peace of mind this Christmas?  Then look at the Christ-child in the manger.  Like the people of Judah we know that Our Deliverer Comes, giving peace.  No longer do we have to struggle like someone in a straight jacket to get in good with God.  Thanks to Jesus we are at peace with God.

Bringing Joy

            In the late 1960's, there was a left wing student group called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  Reports came out that they captured a young woman named Patty Hearst, daughter of a big dollar newspaper and publishing family.  Then came the shocking report that Patty may actually have been on the side of those radicals, and the kidnap was a hoax.  If you were her father at that moment, what would you do?  What would you have been willing to pay to get her back?  Or would you even bother?

            We could have asked the same question of God in his dealing with the Israelites.   What would it cost to get his people back?  Would he even bother since they had joined the other side and rebelled against him?

            Isaiah tells us what God did.  The Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.  According to Israelite civil law, a man who died and had no children lost his property.  It was the responsibility of the next of kin to buy the property back and restore it to the family, that is, to redeem all the possessions.  God acted like a next-of-kin to the people who had left him.  He promised to send a Deliverer who would pay the price of redemption.

            No wonder the watchmen on Jerusalem’s broken walls burst into shouts of joy.  As they heard the messenger gasp out good news, they erupted in joyous praise.  Isaiah described the scene, “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.  Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem”.  The Deliverer who comes is God himself; the God who gives peace is a God who brings joy.

            The very fact that God even bothered with us is amazing.  Whenever you tear open a Christmas gift, you are filled with excitement and joy to see what’s inside.  Rarely are you disappointed, and, even if you are, you try not to be rude and show it.  We look like such nice little presents today, all wrapped up in our Christmas clothes.  But when God tears away the bow and wrapping paper, sees the rot inside me and inside you.  Yet – and here’s the Christmas miracle – God still loves us and proved the depth of his love with the price he was willing to pay.  He sent his own Son to be our Deliverer.  That Babe of Bethlehem was no ordinary child.  He was not a doctor, nor a physicist, nor a company arbitrator.  He was not a synod official, nor a university professor, nor a bank president.  This Baby was and is God in human flesh, the Mediator between God and sinners.  We rejoice at the Christmas miracle of God-in-flesh, but he did not come just to be a cute, cuddly baby, cooing away in a feedbox in an old barn.  He came to bleed and die for me, for you.  Burst into songs of joy!  Our Deliverer Comes, bringing joy.

Displaying Power

            Isaiah’s proclamation described a Deliverer who generated a lot of excitement and exuberance in Judah.  But two questions remained.  The first – how far would this peace and joy the Deliverer spread?  We might assume only as far as the borders of Judah.  But not so!  Isaiah said, “All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God”.  You see, God purposely set them at the crossroads of the ancient world with the great early centers of civilization all around.  By the time Jesus was born, the Romans controlled the world.  They built roads and adopted the Greek language.  So no matter where you traveled – Syria, Egypt, Italy, Spain – Greek was used.  That’s why the Lord used Greek for the New Testament.  So the good news could spread like wild fire.  How far?  To the ends of the earth.  Talk about power!

            Whenever you pray the Lord’s Prayer and say, “Your kingdom come,” you are praying that the good news would spread.  How far?  To the borders of Milwaukee County?  To border of Wisconsin and Illinois?  To the east and west coast?  No!  Around the world.  And God is making that happen.  At the synod convention last summer our church body joined in a ministry partnership with a little group of Lutherans in Portugal.  At the same time we learned of an opportunity to take the good news of Jesus to people who have never heard it in the African country of Mozambique.  Guess what the official language of Mozambique is (beyond tribal languages) – Portuguese.  God knows what he’s doing.  Our missionaries can now go to Portugal to learn the language and then head on to Mozambique.  And what about the mission church in Radcliff, Kentucky, which has struggled for nearly three decades.  Thanks to the gifts and prayers of people like you, they are “this close” to land acquisition and building a church to share the news of our Deliverer with many more.  Talk about power!

            The second question?  How long will this peace and joy last?”  Isaiah had the answer, “The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations”.  When God lays bare his arm, he is rolling up his sleeves to go to work, and work he did!  The real message of Christmas is that the Christ-child came to break down the barred gates of hell, pull sinners out of the fire, and transport them to the mansions of heaven.  Talk about power!  And when God rolls up his sleeves to go to work, he doesn’t not roll them down, button his cuff links, sit back, and relax.  He keeps them rolled up and does not take a siesta or nap.  He won’t quit till you and I are in heaven.  Talk about power!  Our Deliverer Comes, displaying power.

Come, then, banish all your sadness!

One and all,

Great and small,

Come with songs of gladness;

We shall live with him forever

There on high

In that joy

Which will vanish never. (CW 37:6)

                                                                                                                                                Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on December 25, 2007  

Services

Sundays 7:45, 9:00 & 10:30 am

Mondays 6:30 pm

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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