December 13 2020
Isaiah 61:1-11
Well, one of the great things about this Christmas season is that it is a welcome gift of something normal in a year that has been anything but normal. The same old TV specials are there to watch, you know, The Charlie Brown Special with its sad little Christmas tree, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas- the original version with all The Who’s down in Whoville and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the Bergermeister Meisterberger. Even though we have watched them too many times to count there is a comfort in their old familiarity.
Then of course are all the old Christmas songs. In addition to the Christmas Carols there of course are ones like I’m Dreaming of A White Christmas, or Jingle Bells or Little Drummer Boy or Do You Hear What I Hear? and Silver Bells. The minute you hear these songs from the past it seems like you are transported back to happier better days.
So it is with the Christmas story itself. It is an old story, one that we have heard countless times. We know of how the angel came to Mary telling her of how she was going to bear the child who would be the Savior of the world. We remember how Mary and Joseph had to go to Bethlehem and how their was no room in the inn. We can not forget how the Holy Couple had to find rest in a stable and there in the most humble of places, Jesus was born. We of course cannot forget the angels appearing to the shepherds telling them that this day in the village of Bethlehem was born a Savior. And last but not least, we cannot forget the Wise Men who came from afar by following the star.
You see, Christmas, thankfully is a very familiar holiday and this brings us such comfort especially this year of all years. But this familiarity is a two edge sword because while we know the story so well what might happen is that we forget just what is all of this supposed to mean. We remember the who, the what, the where, when and the how almost to the exclusion of the why. Yes, Jesus was born, this is of course what we are celebrating but do we remember just why it was such an earth shattering event that Jesus was born? Have we become so complacent with the season that we have forgotten just how amazing and awe inspiring was and is this event of the birth of Jesus? The thing is is that if we would come with fresh eyes to just what God did so long ago on that Silent Night we should come away transformed by the impact of what God has done for us.
This is why this season of Advent is so crucial for us as followers of Jesus who always stand in need of being awaken again and again to the hope we have been given in the gift of the Christ child. This is why our scripture for this week, this sixty first chapter of Isaiah is so important for us to hear. It is this chapter that Jesus himself tells us in the fourth chapter of Luke is fulfilled with his coming. So, this chapter is all about Jesus, who he is and why it is that he came to us so long ago.
This sixty first chapter holds a place of prominence in the book of Isaiah that may not be evident from a quick read through but if you study the book of Isaiah starting at the fifty sixth chapter and ending with the sixty sixth chapters what you find is that all of these chapters point to this chapter, the sixty first chapter. It is as if Isaiah was doing his best to point his readers to what he considered the most important message that he had been given. Not only that, there are parts of what has been written in this sixty first chapter that point to other chapters so that was disclosed earlier now is brought once again to the fore front. We encounter this in the very first sentence that states, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me…” Isaiah here is stating something that we find way back in the eleventh chapter of his book. There we read, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him…” The phrase the “the stump of Jesse” refers to the covenant God made with David that there shall always be one of David’s offspring on the throne of Israel. What happened though was that the descendants of David were corrupt and God punished them by allowing Babylon to carry them into exile. So it appeared that that covenant had failed, the house of David was like a tree that had been cut down. But in this eleventh chapter of Isaiah we find that out of this stump that seems so lifeless there will come one last king on whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest. This is very much like when David was anointed king as we hear in the sixteenth chapter of the first book of Samuel where we learn of how Samuel took a flask of oil and anointed David and we are told that the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. The point of all of this is that when we learn that the Spirit of the Lord is resting upon this person in the sixty first chapter of Isaiah we are to know that who Isaiah is referencing is the last king of the lineage of David, the one who will come forth like a sprout out of the long dead stump of the house of David.
Yet, this one spoken of in the sixty first chapter is not only the long awaited king he is the one Isaiah writes extensively about known simply as the Servant. We first hear of this servant in the forty second chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah writes, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him;” So, here in the sixty first chapter, Isaiah brings these two strands of thought together in one individual, the King who is also the Servant of God. This is how this chapter begins with two ideas that don’t seem to belong together, this idea of kingship, this exalted one upon the throne, and this idea of servanthood, the one who is humble and lowly. So right here at the beginning of this chapter, Isaiah is challenging the typical views that someone can’t be both an exalted king and a lowly servant and instead states that this one who is coming will most assuredly be the embodiment of both.
Now, what this king-servant is going to do is clearly spelled out in the following verses of this sixty first chapter. This Servant-King is going to bring good news to the poor, to the afflicted. Here again, Isaiah is pointing us to something that he has written earlier.In the fifty second chapter we read, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.’ This then is the good news that those who are afflicted are to hear that their God is king. Now hearing this and knowing that the one who is to be anointed as king we can see that this one who is coming is none other than God himself who comes to reign but he will do so as a servant which further should never stop to amaze us. When God is king then those who are poor and afflicted will have at last hope that they will experience the justice and righteousness that they hunger and thirst for.
The Servant- King though will do more than bring the good news that our God reigns but he will also act because he has, as our scripture tells us, been sent to bind up the broken hearted. The words, “bind up” point us to the first chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah speaking of the state of God’s people tells us, “The whole head is sick and the whole heart diseased. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it but bruises and sores and raw wounds; they are not pressed out or bound up…”So, here Isaiah is stating that this Servant-King is coming to us reaching into the depths of who we are and bringing back together our hearts that have been divided by their loyalty to our base desires and our desire to be true to God unable to decide which voice shall command our attention.
This servant-king we are told in this chapter, is going to be the one to proclaim liberty to the captives, to let out into light those who sit in darkness. Here Isaiah writes something similar to what he had written in the forty second chapter that his servant was to be a light for the nations, to open the eyes that were blind, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Once again this one that Isaiah writes about here in this sixty first chapter he is the one who is going to come down into the depths where light cannot reach and bring the light and raise up those imprisoned there so thy might live in his light.
So can you feel the joy expressed in these few verses from Isaiah? This Servant-King is coming to announce the good news that our God reigns. No more will the poor and afflicted be used and abused by the strong and powerful because now God will bring his justice and righteousness upon the earth. This Servant-King will take the sickness and disease that afflicts people and replace this with health and wholeness. And those who were living imprisoned by a life of sin, living in depths where light cannot reach, these will be be set free to live in the light by this Servant-King who is willing to come to them right where they are at. Yet this is not all because Isaiah goes on to tell us what we might understand as the cause, the power that brings about the healing and freedom making them to be a reality in our life. Isaiah tells us that this Servant-King will proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Here we must pause and consider just what is being said here. Just why is it that at long last we have been found to be favorable in the eyes of the Lord, that we might be found to be accepted by God even though we are people diseased by sin, whose hearts are divided, even though we are people imprisoned by the darkness of living far from the glory of God? The answer is that this Servant-King has done something incredible for us. Isaiah tells us in the fifty second and fifty third chapters about the work of this servant of God that he was the one who has borne our grief, and carried our sorrows. We esteemed him stricken,Isaiah tells us, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his stripes we are healed. And further in the fifty third chapter we are told, “God shall see the anguish of the servant’s soul and be satisfied; by his experiencing pain and suffering shall the righteous one, my servant make many to be accounted righteous and he shall bear their iniquities.” This is the reason for their being a time of God’s favor because the Servant-King has taken upon himself our sins and our transgressions. It was his wounds that brought us healing; it was his going down into the darkness of death this is the reason that we are set free to live in the light.In this work of the Servant-King, God wanted to make certain once and for all, that he accepts us just as we are, right where we are. It is this knowing that God accepts us that changes everything.Now we know a secure place of refuge for our soul. Here is the God who has done the unthinkable to make so that we an come to him and trust him with all of our life no longer putting any confidence in our own strength or abilities. Now we know the God who accepts us will provide all we need so that anxiety, fear and worry will no longer dominate our life. We are set free to hear the word of God and obey that word so that we live the righteous life that God created us to live. This is how we have confidence on the day of God’s vengeance, that day of judgment. This is when God will once and for all deal with the evil that has ruined his good creation. On that day we will be safe when, by faith, we place our trust in what the Servant-King has done for us.This is why instead of mourning we have gladness, instead of a faint spirit we have shouts of praise for our God. The Servant-King has dealt with our transgressions and our sins so that we might be called oaks of righteousness. Here again Isaiah is pointing to something he wrote in the first chapter. There Isaiah tells us, “For they shall be ashamed by the oaks that you desired; and you shall blush for the gardens you have chosen. For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers and like a garden without water.” Here Isaiah describes how the oaks became a source of idol worship to the people of Israel who had turned their back on God. The result is that in doing so is that they had cut themselves off from their very source of life. But now through the sacrificial work of the promised Servant-King their sin will be dealt with so that they can at long last return back to God. Now those cut off from life can experience healing through what the Servant-King had done for them that they can find life through him and become oaks of righteousness, strong, immovable, steadily growing upward through the power of God who accepted them and loved them. These Isaiah tells us will be the planting of the Lord and they exist to bring glory to God. This glory as we find in the thirty fourth chapter of Exodus is that God is a God who is slow to anger, a God who is merciful and gracious, a God abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. When we bring glory to God then, we have lives that display this same glory, lives that are slow to anger, lives of mercy and grace, lives abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This is a life of righteousness that finds its life in the eternal life of God.
It is this righteous life that is to be be so different than a life driven by one’s base desires that others will long to have this life for themselves. This is what Isaiah is trying to convey when he tells us that strangers and foreigners will come to the people of Israel to join in their work of bringing God’s salvation to all the world. The people of Israel will once again know themselves in the way God described them at Mt. Sinai a royal kingdom of priests, people through whom the salvation of God comes to the world. Isaiah says that no more will the people of God experience shame, that experience of judgment at the hands of others but instead Isaiah tells them they will receive a double portion. What is lost in translation here is that this term a “double portion” describes the share of the inheritance for the first born son. So, what is meant by their receiving a double portion is that God considered them to be like a first born son. No wonder they would have everlasting joy! In knowing that God considered them to be like a first born son then they also had to understand that God was saying that he was their Heavenly Father. Like a story we know all too well, when we find ourselves in a far country and we turn to go home what we find is that our Heavenly Father welcomes us home with arms wide open. Much as Isaiah describes, our Heavenly Father takes and clothes us with the garments of salvation and he wraps his robe of righteousness around us. This is why we rejoice in the Lord, why our life is high and lifted up because of what God through his Servant-King has done for us.
This then is why we rejoice at the birth of Jesus. This Jesus born at Bethlehem is none other than the promised Servant-King. This is the one who came into our world to bring good news to us who are poor in spirit, afflicted by sin. This is the one who has come from heaven to bind up our broken hearts. This is the one who is the light of the world who has come to a world imprisoned by the darkness of evil and death. This is the one who declares that now is the time of God’s favor because he is the one who not only came to serve but also to die upon a cross to bear away our sins, to deal once and for all for our transgressions. This he did so that no longer do we have to fear the day of God’s vengeance, the day of judgment because in accepting the acceptance of God we have been judged to be righteous. Now because of this Jesus we can know ourselves as oaks of righteousness, strong immovable for ever alive because of Jesus. Through Jesus we can know God as our Heavenly Father who welcomes us home, who clothes us in garments of salvation and wraps a robe of righteousness around us. All of this is why we rejoice and sing with gladness at the birth of Jesus our beloved Servant-King. Amen.
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