The Return of the King
Isaiah 52:7-10
Associate Pastor Doug Forsberg
December 25, 2005
It’s quite a story isn’t it? This year we’re fortunate enough to come together one more time to have it told to us. I’m assuming that if you’re here this morning you need to hear this story one more time. Surely, you didn’t come for the coffee. After all, Dunkin Donuts is closed and we aren’t brewing the good stuff this morning.
It seems to me that those of us who have come together this morning in worship are here because we need to hear the Good News one more time. There is something within each of us that rebels against the notion that opening presents, spending time with family, enjoying Christmas meals, watching Christmas football, preparing for after Christmas sales events (all fine things in and of themselves) . . . there is something in us that rebels against the notion that this is all there is, for in all of these things there are signs of our deep and unrelenting sin.
Try as we might, we just can’t pull off that perfect Christmas. No doubt we want this day to be perfect. We want to push away the ugliness of a world beset by starving children, AIDS pandemics, and natural disasters. We want to push away the ugliness we find within ourselves as we hoard our treasures, lash out at those we love, and hide behind our piety. There is no pushing away the reality in which we live though. It is too close to home, even today, for it resides in our hearts, and it always bears down on us. That’s why we’re here this morning, and this is a good place to be, for we are gathered with so many others who also need to hear the story again.
The prophet Isaiah lived 700 years before the birth of Christ during a time of international intrigue and the expansion and contraction of empires. One did not know who could be trusted, and today’s allies could easily become tomorrow’s enemies. It’s a good thing we don’t live in a time like that.
As nations rose and fell tiny, little Judah was caught in the middle of it all, wondering how she would survive in a world dominated by powers that terrified her. The first 39 chapters of Isaiah remind us of the simplicity of God’s word to his people: trust in the Lord alone. Don’t trust in chariots, foreign kings, or even worse, foreign gods; trust in the Lord alone.
Isaiah’s words fell on deaf ears though, for in a world fraught by powers that are beyond our control it is much easier to trust in what we can see and touch than to hold on to that which cannot be seen. In chapter 39, the Lord speaks through Isaiah to announce that he will exile his people to Babylon. The people of God will be forced out of the Promised Land and into a foreign land that does not know the Lord.
This indeed was shocking news to Judah, and it came to pass 586 years before Christ was born. God’s people, chosen out of all the peoples of the earth, found themselves in a strange land that did not know or care about who they were or how their God was at work in the world. God’s interaction with Judah had always involved the promise of a specific place; and now because of their sin, Judah faced the terrible realization that they had forfeited their inheritance for worthless idols. The things and the people in which they had placed their trust failed them, and they had been rejected by God.
God’s rejection was not everlasting though, for even as Isaiah told of this future exile, he also spoke of a return to the Promised Land and an ingathering of God’s people. Think of the way this news would have felt to those who found themselves in Babylon after the exile had come to pass. It was probably unbelievable, and it was also their only hope. So it is that the prophet could say: “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!" Can you imagine the response of the exiles to the messengers who told them they could go home? Home was not only a physical place for these people, it was a spiritual place, a place in which they knew their God was with them and no longer rejecting them.
So it is that God was not only speaking to the exiles in Babylon through Isaiah. God was also speaking to us. God was speaking to those who know that the world is not as it should be and to those who know that their own hearts are not as they should be. When Jesus Christ was born some 2,000 years ago, peace was proclaimed, good tidings were announced, and salvation was published, for with the birth of this baby, God had come to do what humanity could not do. Jesus, fully God and fully human, had come to live in obedience to the Father, and his obedience led him to the cross on Calvary, and on that cross, he bore our sin, and he knew the wrath of God, making a way for those who deserved that wrath.
This is the Good News of Christmas morning. Jesus has done what we cannot do. Jesus has made a way for all people to come to the Father, for they come through him. How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring this Good News to every land and nation. How beautiful are those who bring this news to the hearts of those closest to them. The world is not the same, for Christ has come.
Brothers and sisters there is even more Good News to share with one another on this Christmas morning. We all know that Christ’s birth has changed the world, yet we are challenged by the sin that still surrounds us, by natural disasters that claim so many, by sickness that makes us suffer and by death who stalks us. We live in an in between time; we live in our own Babylon, and we wait for the return of our King. Just as God’s promise to the exiles was true, so it is that Jesus’ promise of his return is true, and when he comes again every tear will be wiped away from our eyes and all of the injustice and agony that afflicts us will be cast down, and the people of God will say together that “Our God reigns!”
That is the story we need to hear again this morning.
Merry Christmas friends!
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.