Isaiah 11
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 Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
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.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Merry Christmas to you all. It's a joy that we get to celebrate Christ's incarnation and birth every year. This is the night where we do that. We remember that God became a human being came down to earth to join us in our human existence, and live as one of us. The readings tonight tell the salvation story over the course of the history of Israel, looking at Genesis, the fall into sin at Abraham and his gift of His Son, the predictions of a Savior who would come and then the story of Jesus being born, that same savior that was promised. Today, I'd like to take a look at this, the passages from Isaiah, that help us to see who Jesus is to be. Isaiah chapter nine, says that he will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. The Prince of Peace. Peace sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? I bet just about every one of you has a piece of your life, where you would like to bring that Prince of peace into right? At least to bring just regular old, plain old normal peace because we all something the Prince of Peace. What's amazing about this Prince of Peace is what the other passage in Isaiah describes his reign will be like, and it's pretty outstanding. He has the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, and His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. You shall not judge by by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness, He shall judge the poor. Righteousness, wisdom, understanding. And what an amazing result happens. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and a little child shall lead them. Oh, amazing, is that? It's actually kind of crazy, isn't it? To put a wolf and a lamb together in a pen pretty soon you only have one. You know which one it is, right? You put the leopard. And the young goats in the same space, you get a very short chase. And just a leopard remains. Wolves and lambs they fight. Leopards eat goats. What kind of piece is that? It's a crazy kind of piece. Right? Outside of our experience, something so crazy that you could set down a toddler with a cobra, and be happy about it. Can you imagine? We won't even let our kids play outside these days. The Prince of Peace? We could all use that kind of peace. Couldn't we? Wouldn't it be great if we could have leaders who are like this Prince of Peace? Perhaps the craziest thing about this prediction is that there might be a leader out there who has wisdom and understanding. When it'd be great if they would just not fight. If politics wasn't about blasting the other person if all they did was trying to bring about peace, justice. Couldn't we use that kind of peace? Wouldn't it be great if the people in our own lives could disagree with one another in love? Like we have a disagreement, and it doesn't devolve down to name calling bashing the They're running off to someone else and complaining about them. But we could simply just talk it out. Wouldn't it be great to have that kind of peace? But it's so rare? Wouldn't it be great if you could get along with your neighbors that way? I don't know about you, but I have really great neighbors. But not all of us do. Sometimes we fight about where they put the garbage can. Right? Sometimes what we do is we ask a simple request, and they yell back at you. Maybe it's not your neighbor, maybe it's your co worker. person you see every day classmate? Wouldn't it be great if we could have peace? Wouldn't it be great if our families, even just our families, could have peace all the time? The people who are supposed to love each other the most sometimes we fight each other, the hardest? And then we don't talk about it. And it builds up until we all get together for Christmas. And there is an explosion. Right? Wouldn't it be great if we could even have peace in our families? Wouldn't it be great if we could just have peace one place in our own hearts? I don't know about you. I'm a pretty happy guy. And even I have struggles. Don't always find peace in my own heart. Wouldn't it be great if we could have peace? That is what Jesus is about. He is the prince of peace, who comes to end all conflict, make wars cease. And his reign even is so radically peaceful that the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the goat with the leopard. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And we see the peace of Jesus in the way he came into this world. Not as a warrior king in Great King Herod's halls, but with the sheep and the donkey in a small house, in Bethlehem, lying in a manger, where it wasn't the mighty and the powerful, who heard the announcement of the Savior being born, but shepherds out in a field working hard all night long. who suddenly get to hear that a Pete a prince has come the Prince of Peace. And he comes to end all this conflict by taking care of the heart of conflict itself, our own sin. You see, conflict isn't just out in the world and other people's faults. It always starts in here with each one of us. That's what our opening reading from Genesis is all about. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the very first thing they do is blame each other. Right. Adam blames God for putting the woman there. Then he blames Eve. He blames the snake and no one takes responsibility. And they set the pattern for the rest of us. We don't have peace in our lives because we have sin in our hearts. And that peace causes conflict inside of us, in our families, and our neighborhoods, our workplaces and in the world. And what we need is the Prince of Peace, to come to us with his reign and rule to bring us peace. And that is Jesus. That's why He came to earth
to end the hostility between each other between us and God and to get rid of all All of our sin, the Prince of Peace came to bring that peace to you. And He does it by bringing his kingdom here. The Prince of Peace can come to you. Does that very simply, humbly and lowly. In a church, talk to the end of a parking lot, every Sunday morning. You've got normal human beings, none of whom who have true peace all on their own. With sin that brings about conflicts with problems in our families with hurts in our past with pain in our lives. And we come here because we need that Prince of Peace. Just like you, just like everyone, we need a Savior who came to earth to die for us, to rise for us, and who will make all things new. That Prince of Peace is wherever this ministry happened. So I encourage you, everyone who wants peace in your life, if you're seeking it in your own heart, in your communities, in your families, wherever it is, the only way to get it is to be where the Prince of Peace comes to fill you with His peace, to receive His Word, and Sacraments, to have him fill you with His peace. So that you can have it both now and when he returns to raise you from the dead. And so we come here tonight we celebrate a birth we sing the carols that we sing every year we think about the sheep and the shepherds and all of those cute and wonderful things. But at the heart of it all, is the Savior who wants to bring you peace wants to give that to you every single day of the year and calls you to come and receive it. In his name, amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai