Honor the Stable Born King (Isaiah 9:1-7)
- please open your Bibles to Isaiah 9 this morning
- on Sunday evening, October 30, 1938, millions of Americans tuned into the CBS radio network
- they heard an announcer’s voice breaking into the music of the orchestra:
- "Ladies and gentleman, we interrupt our program of dance and music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News"
- then, during the next hour, the audience was stunned to hear a series of increasingly hysterical voices narrating an invasion of Martian monsters, landing first on a New Jersey farm, then unleashing poisonous gases over New York city
- the broken voice of an announcer cried out: "Avoid bridges to Long Island – hopelessly jammed. All communication with Jersey shore closed…No more defenses. Our army wiped out…artillery, air force, everything wiped out. This may be our last broadcast"
- as the program was broadcast, hundreds of thousands thought that a space invasion was actually happening
- of the six million people who heard the broadcast, no fewer than one million experienced serious levels of distress
- thousands were thrown into absolute panic
- only later did people realize that they had been listening to an Orson Welles – Mercury Theatre production of a science fiction story called The War of the Worlds
- this morning I’d like to look at an invasion that actually did take place
- this invasion is not a work of fiction, but a historical fact
- and it did not take place from outer space, but according to the Bible, from heaven itself
- and, unlike the fictional invaders in The War of the Worlds, he did not come announced to millions of listeners, but he came silently, almost unnoticed, except to a few relatively minor people of that day
- one of the amazing things is that this coming was foretold hundreds of years before it actually happened
- eight hundred years before a virgin mother conceived and bore a son, the prophet Isaiah prophesied who was coming
- as he wrote, the situation was bleak
- Assyria was closing in on Israel
- Isaiah prophesied to a cocky king and his defiant people that judgment was inevitable
- Isaiah’s prophesy in Isaiah 8:21-22 couldn’t be much worse:
- (Isaiah 8:21) Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God.
- (Isaiah 8:22) Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.
- friends, the scene was a hopeless one
- but unexpectedly, Isaiah prophesied that God’s salvation would come from an unexpected place: Galilee of the Gentiles, in verse 1
- it was the other side of the tracks
- and what Isaiah prophesied in verses 2 to 7 is nothing less than political and spiritual freedom
- according to Isaiah, a light would come to penetrate the darkness
- Israel’s enemies would be vanquished
- and a king would reign – a king described in verses 6 and 7
- the government would rest upon his shoulders
- he would reign on David’s throne
- and there would be no end to his government
- listen, friends: in the middle of our gloom and despair, when it appears that our troubles and sorrows will never end, the Lord always provides a way
- when everything appears to be going wrong, and when it appears as if there is no hope, the Lord has given a light to those of us who walk in darkness
- and this morning I want to look at the babe lying in the manger, not through the eyes of the shepherds, the magi, Mary or Joseph
- I want to look at Jesus Christ through the eyes of the prophet Isaiah, 800 years before he was born
- Matthew 4:15-16 tell us that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecy
- let’s ask ourselves what Isaiah sees as he looks at Jesus
- I believe Isaiah tells us two things: who Jesus is, and how he will come
- I’d invite you to look with me at verses 6 and 7 as we ask:
- WHO IS THIS KING?
- who is this divine invader?
- if you remember the context, Assyria was closing in on Israel
- Isaiah prophesied that their defeat was sure
- things couldn’t have been bleaker for the nation
- and Isaiah gets right down to the bottom of who Jesus Christ is: Jesus Christ is God’s solution to a desperate situation
- Jesus Christ is God’s way out of a hopeless situation
- when all else seems hopeless, according to Isaiah, this child is the only hope in a desperate situation
- Isaiah uses four terms to describe Jesus
- these are poetic terms – rich in meaning, but difficult to understand, especially with the change in language over hundreds of years
- but try to understand just who Isaiah says Jesus Christ will be
- verse 6 calls him "Wonderful Counselor"
- the word counselor is different from how we use it today
- today, we think of a counselor as a professional to whom we go with our personal problems
- but that’s not what Isaiah had in mind
- Isaiah was thinking of the sort of counselor mentioned in 1 Kings 12 – an advisor who gives advice in government deliberations – especially military advice
- this is a person with the wisdom necessary to carry come up with a plan
- the term wonderful frequently means supernatural
- when you put the two words together – wonderful counselor – you get the picture of somebody with a supernatural or divine plan
- and we know that’s true of Jesus – the one who was intimately acquainted with the counsels of God from eternity
- he is the very wisdom of God, who knows all things, and nothing ever takes him by surprise
- Isaiah also says that he is Mighty God
- in 325 AD, the church declared that Jesus is of the same essence with the Father – in other words, that Jesus is indeed God
- but 800 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah said the same thing
- he called Jesus mighty God
- whereas kings and Caesars of the ancient world viewed themselves as gods of the people, Isaiah claimed that the king he had in mind is the Almighty God
- it talks about his divine power
- the third name Isaiah gives to him is the Everlasting Father
- I’ve always wondered why the Son of God would be given the name, "the Everlasting Father"
- and the answer is this: it isn’t describing his relationship with God; it’s describing his fatherly rule over the nation
- God’s original design for Israel’s kings is that they would care for the people as a shepherd would care for a flock
- yet these kings failed
- just read the Old Testament prophets
- time and time again, the kings are condemned for mistreating the people and leading them astray
- in contrast, Isaiah prophesies that Jesus will be a shepherd who will always care for his people, without end
- that’s who Jesus is
- the last name Isaiah gives to Jesus is also found in verse 6: the Prince of Peace
- Jesus is called the prince of Shalom
- for us, peace is a negative thing – the absence of war
- but the biblical sense of the word is much different
- and, as applied to a prince or a king, it has two implications:
- he will defeat his enemies and win victory for his people
- and as well, he will bring divine peace and blessings to his people
- though a king, he will stoop to the role of prince to accomplish a truce among warring nations and divided hearts
- he would be the Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace
- the one who, according to verse 7, would reign forever, "establishing and upholding [his kingdom] with justice and righteousness, from that time on and forever"
- "Enemy-occupied territory – that is what the world is," C.S. Lewis writes
- "Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage"
- you don’t just humor or accommodate someone whose titles are Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace
- your only option in the presence of royalty is to show honor
- when Queen Victoria of England lived in her summer residence, Balmoral, she used to take long walks through the countryside in simple clothes so that she wouldn’t be recognized
- on one such occasion, it began to rain, and she ran to a little cottage for refuge and asked the old woman who lived there if she might borrow an umbrella so she could make her way home
- the woman had never seen Queen Victoria, and had no idea who she was
- being a little cantankerous, the woman grudgingly replied, "Well, I have two umbrellas. One is very good and almost new. The other is quite worn. You can take the old one; the new one I don’t want to lend to anybody. Who knows when I would get it back?"
- and with that, she gave the queen a tattered umbrella with spokes sticking out all around
- Queen Victoria thanked the woman kindly, thinking, "An old umbrella is better than none at all"
- she promised to return the umbrella right away, and graciously departed, smiling
- the next morning, when a servant in royal garb returned the old umbrella with thanks from the Queen of England, the poor woman was horrified
- "If only I had known," she said over and over again, "If only I had known"
- make no mistake about it
- the one who was born in a stable two thousand years ago was a king – the fulfillment of myriad prophesies of the Old Testament
- he is the one who has a perfect plan, and is carrying it out
- he is the Mighty God – he has power to conquer his enemies, because he is divine
- he is caring for his people like a tender Father, and will never stop doing so
- he’s bringing his people peace – not just the absence of conflict, but a peace that passes all understanding, no matter what the situation
- I’ll say it again: Isaiah presents Jesus as God’s solution to a desperate situation
- and you know
- you know this morning who he is, and your only choice is to worship him
- that’s the answer to question one: who is he?
- the answer is, he’s a king like no other
- but we need to answer question two this morning, in order to understand the way God is working
- because in looking at the baby born in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, well – he doesn’t seem like this Mighty God
- but Isaiah answers another question about Jesus:
- HOW DOES HE COME?
- not only, "who is he?" but "how does he come?"
- and the answer is found in verse 6:
- (Isaiah 9:6) For to us a child is born, to us a son is given
- the same person who is the Mighty God becomes a child who is born
- the ancient of days becomes an infant of a span long
- the Everlasting Father is a son given
- Philip Yancey writes:
Before Jesus, almost no pagan author had used "humble" as a compliment. Yet the events of Christmas point inescapably to what seems like an oxymoron: a humble God. The God who came to earth not in a raging whirlwind or devouring fire. Unimaginably, the Maker of all things shrank down, down, down, so small as to become an ovum, a single fertilized egg barely visible to the naked eye, an egg that would divide and redivide until a fetus took shape, enlarging cell by cell inside a nervous teenager…The God who roared, who could order armies and empires about like pawns on a chessboard, this God emerged in Palestine as a baby who could not speak or eat solid food or control his bladder, who depended on a teenage couple for shelter, food, and love.
- G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The child that played with moon and sun, Is playing with a little hay…"
- I read of a Hindu, who could not believe in Christianity because he could not contemplate a God who would so humble himself
- then one day the he came across an anthill
- he tried to get close enough to study it, but every time he bent low, his shadow caused all the ants to scurry away
- he recognized to himself that the only way in which he could ever come to know that colony of ants would be if he could somehow become an ant himself
- and that was the moment in which his conversion began
- that’s the divine invader
- U.S. News and World Report once put out an article on pigs
- a man named Dale Riffle and received a Vietnamese potbellied pig as a gift
- at that time, they were popular as exotic pets
- unfortunately, pigs aren’t necessarily ideal pets
- Dale’s pig, named Rufus, wouldn’t use its litter box, and apparently began to eat Dale’s carpet, wallpaper, and drywall
- but the man loved his pig so much, he sold his suburban home and bought a five-acre farm in West Virginia
- and he began to take in other "exotic pet pigs" whose owners found them less than perfect companions
- in Dale Riffle’s 180-pig "hog heaven," the pigs snooze on beds of pine shavings, soak in plastic swimming pools, and listen to piped-in classical music
- they socialize in age-graded affinity groups
- they never need fear that they will one day become bacon or pork chops
- Riffle told U.S. News and World Report, "I think we’re all put on earth for some reason, and I guess pigs are my lot in life"
- it’s incredible that someone could love pigs so much that he’d leave his nice, suburban home to live in "hog heaven"
- but think what the Son of God did: he loved us so much that he left his throne in heaven to be born as a helpless baby in a cave
- that’s humility!
- as we approach the communion table, reflect on who Jesus is
- he is God’s hope for a desperate situation
- he is the Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace
- and yet he became nothing for your sake
- he left his throne in heaven to be born as a helpless baby in a cave, so that he could save you – so that he could redeem you
- how do you honor a stable-born king?
- you worship him
- you give him your all
- I don’t know if you’ve worshiped him yet
- I don’t know what your relationship with him is like
- but I’m telling you this morning, you can begin to worship him today
- you can respond to the divine invader by accepting his perfect gift of salvation, by accepting that gift of love and forgiveness that brought him from heaven’s throne to a dirty cave filled with animals
- and he can become your king today
- let’s pray
- the reason Jesus left heaven and all the rights of his majesty was for you
- Jesus loved the world so much that he came to a stable to redeem creation
- he willingly gave up all his rights to bring you salvation
- this morning you can become a subject of this humble King, and turn yourself over to his reign
- by accepting his love, and accepting the perfect sacrifice he made for you
- if there’s somebody here who would like to do this, who would like to accept God’s answer to a desperate situation, would you raise your hand this morning?
- benediction
- Christ Jesus, we come to honor you, born in a stable yet still our all-powerful king
- this week help us to be your faithful subjects
- as we honor the birth of the baby, may we also remember to kneel before you, the Prince of Peace, the Lord Almighty, the King of Glory!
- Amen.