Isaiah 52:7-10
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.”
The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
the return of the Lord to Zion.
Break forth together into singing,
you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Merry Christmas. It is joyful to be able to wish you all a Merry Christmas, once again as we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. I love Christmas movies. And we in our household have a stable of movies that we like to watch around this time of year. It's interesting to see what they say the meaning of Christmas really is. We watch things like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, either the old short version with the song, you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch to go to one right. Or the new one with Jim Carrey. What is the meaning of Christmas there? It's about community. Right? The whole point of that movie is it's not the President's it's about getting together and singing nonsense songs. Daboo Doris, right. Whatever that is. About It's A Wonderful Life. What's the meaning of that one? I have to admit, I haven't seen it in a long time because I think it's the most boring movie ever made. I know. I know, breaking your hearts. But there's something about the person being a place a cog in society, and that everything depends on all of us working together. Oh, yeah. And every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings. The meaning of Christmas. What about Miracle on 34th Street? The importance of believing in Santa. Right? That's kind of what it's about. Nobody believes it's actually the Santa's Christmas story. It's one of my favorites. It's all about a family that smell kind of quirky, a little weird. But they're together. I had one for Christmas vacation National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I thought, coming into watching it last night. That the meaning of Christmas, there was a family that gets together. But having seen it, I realized that the meaning of Christmas is how great it is to get a bonus check. Which is really everything is terrible until he gets some money. And then they celebrate. Do you notice what's missing? In every single one of those Christmas movies? Absolutely. Jesus. Hidden behind all of the things that we watch on television, or the things in the celebrations in our culture hidden behind all of that is the actual reason we are gathered here today in the celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God, as Jesus Christ was born to poor parents in a faraway land who had to hustle off to Bethlehem so that they could register for attacks that was coming and living in a relative's house that was so full with the other relatives who came that day that they had to stay with the animals. A poor child who was the king. That's what our readings today are all about. About a hidden King, underneath the poverty of Mary and Joseph. It's not just a king, God himself who comes down to lie in a manger about that big. Right. Jesus is a king who is hidden. Are Old Testament reading for today. Talks about the reign of the king, God himself. It says 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 rain That's the message of Christmas, your God, rain. And Isaiah is day, this would have been a message of hope that someone would come and free the people from oppression. This time, oppression from an army of nations like a Syria, or Babylon or Persia or later the Romans would send armies into Israel and take over. And the people would expect a king, someone like King David, who rode around on a chariot who had a sword and a spear. And they wanted a king on a throne, full of power with a sword in his fist. And they look back at the mighty kings like David and say, Will there ever be a king like this again? Will someone come to save us?
But the mystery of today is that God reigns over all of creation, even without a king. What they missed at that time is publishing this message your God reigns with that God was actually the one behind Assyria and Babylon, sending the armies to punish and unfaithful Israel. And giving them a promise that He is the one behind everything. But even behind all this sadness that they were experiencing, he would not forget them. In Isaiah 10, God calls a Syria, the rod of His anger. And then he says because they took it too far, he would punish them as well. You see, God would reign over Israel, whether there was a king on the throne or not, God reigns. We can see that from 1000s of years later, as we look at the history of Israel, and we see them go from conquered by a Syria to conquered by Babylon off in exile. And then finally back and we see how God's plan was laid out over the years to lead us to the glorious day of Jesus Christ. That there would be a king who was born in Bethlehem, just as Isaiah predicted, that everything would happen exactly the way Isaiah said, throughout all of history. Your God reigns. That's the method and message of Christmas. For us, the story of Christmas is kind of similar to those expectations. Human beings always expect a king to come with power. Right? The Son of God, though, is born in that poor family. spends his first nights lying in a feed trough next to the animals. It's so strange, isn't it? For a king. Nobody expected that way. Nobody in Israel, nobody who was far away. And we know that because when the Weizmann hear about the King of the Jews, and they see the star, they don't go to the town of Bethlehem do they? Do they go to Jerusalem to Herod the king, where the palace is where the soldiers are, where the gold is in the mind and the power, they expected a king on a throne full of power with a sword in his fist. And they expected it to be a king like that. And they went, whereas this new baby King and the news shook Herod and rightly so. Because he wasn't in charge. God was you couldn't see it. If you only looked at the soldiers. You couldn't see it if you only looked at the gold and the parades and the power and the catapults and whatever they had. But if you knew the message of Isaiah, you would know your God reigns. And he is there in a manger in Bethlehem, hiding behind this tiny child ruling over all of creation. The King has come to God has become man. Your God reigns. That's the message that we have on Christmas Day, the message for all of us and the message of Jesus's ministry. When he was baptized, he went out and he said, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is here. And if you looked behind him, there were no soldiers, spears, no armor, no wagons, or Treasury or anything like that. It was service, and miracles. He didn't amass wealth or power. He didn't do it any way, any way that anyone would expect. They wanted a king on a throne will full of power with a sword in his fist. But that wasn't Jesus. Even Peter wanted that, right. When Jesus started to say what he would do, where he would be crowned by being lifted up on a cross, Peter said, No way. You're gonna fight and you're gonna win. And it was the opposite, that Jesus would go and die on a cross and lifted up to his throne, which wasn't made out of gold, but wood, and nails with a crown that wasn't made out of precious gems, with thorns. And then he would die and rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven, where now he sits at God's right hand reigning over all of creation. It's just not what you'd expect. If you thought that our God was the kind of king that everybody expects. You see, even today, we think that when we hear the message, your God reigns, that it should be powerful. It should be exciting. It should be big and loud. And it should win all the time. We don't have a message like a king anymore. We in America, we don't think kings are winning. What do we do? If the tech gurus, Steve Jobs is kind of the ultimate Epitome, which is why so many churches look like tech gurus speeches. Right? It's an empty stage, and a giant screen, and a guy in skinny jeans. And we look at those pastors and we say, look how successful they are. They're big and powerful and strong. They're exciting and amazing. But what are they missing? Jesus is the King. Your God reigns not in power, and might with a throne with a sword. rains in hidden ways, just as he always had, just in the same way he did when he came on earth. And yet, we still want something to be powerful. We want to worship experience that excites us and gets us moving. Even though Taylor Swift can do the same thing, can't she? Maybe it's more about those emotions than it is about the Holy Spirit. We want Christians who live the way we preach right? We preach the good news of Jesus Christ and it's all about love and service and then we don't do it. Right. And we get mad at the church because it's filled with sinners who aren't Jesus and yet, your god rains. He rains here in hidden way. He rains here through the Word and Sacraments. In the same way he lived the same way he died. He is hidden in the message of the gospel. The message is your God ray that he is coming back again. It's not that day, it will no longer be hidden by the King who is on the throne in heaven will finally come with the power and might we expect it He will make all things new. Until then he stays hidden behind the words of a faithful pastor in a congregation that may have five or 5000 people under the bread and the wine in our congregation, and every place where God's people gather. The message is your God reigns. In his name, amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai