Awake, awake, Zion, clothe yourself with strength. Put on your garments of splendor, Jerusalem, the holy city. The uncircumcised and defiled will not enter you again. 2 Shake off your dust; rise up, sit enthroned, Jerusalem. Free yourself from the chains on your neck, Daughter Zion, now a captive. 3 For this is what the Lord says: “You were sold for nothing, and without money you will be redeemed..” 4 For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “At first my people went down to Egypt to live; lately, Assyria has oppressed them. 5 “And now what do I have here?” declares the Lord.“For my people have been taken away for nothing, and those who rule them mock,” declares the Lord. “And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed. 6 Therefore my people will know my name; therefore, in that day they will know that it is I who foretold it. Yes, it is I.” 7 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!” 8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. 9 Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.11 Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the articles of the Lord’s house. 12 But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. 13 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured, beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness—15 so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand.
The Christmas story is about people patiently waiting, about great anticipation, murmuring, darkness covering the peoples, nations in clamor and rebellion, tragedies scarcely imaginable, even in our day. Do these things find their way into our Christmas stories?
There are of course many passages of Scripture that we could look at to make this point but this morning I want to set before you one that maybe you have not looked at before but that wonderfully illustrates the point. The context of Isaiah 52 is that of the promise of the Lord’s coming to His people. Verses 13 and following speak of the Servant, the One who will come, the One who will be exalted and extolled, the One who is the reason the answer for life….BUT did you notice what is said about Him?
We have His task revealed, the WHY He is coming and we are told that His appearance will be marred more than any man…This anticipated One, will be beaten so badly, tortured so wickedly, that He would scarcely look human. Now we are getting to the heart of Christmas.
Of course, this chapter rolls over into chapter 53 which is one of the most beautiful descriptions of the substitutionary work of Jesus in all of the Bible…Jesus in my place…Jesus for me…Jesus INSTEAD of me.
But let’s look at chapter 52 and what we are to be praising God for in relation to the coming of the Messiah. First, the coming of Christ is to point us to heaven, that is to say, that if our Christmas celebrations do not lift us above this world and what is going on in this world, then we are missing the point.
The language of the first two verses, is the language of the book of the Revelation. The language anticipates the marital union that is spoken of throughout the bible and comes to fullness in the pages of the Revelation in the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is there that we are arrayed in beautiful garments, it is there that the holy city is identified as the heavenly Jerusalem. It is in that description that we are told, as we are again in Isaiah, that the unclean and the uncircumcised shall no longer come to us, the wicked have no part in the glory of Messiah.
Heaven comes to earth, the kingdom of eternity intrudes upon time and in a magnificent way, an impossible to believe way, a baby is born in obscurity among men…God has come to earth.
But, the purpose of His coming is to take man to God. To give to man redemption that causes them to hope for, live for, and anticipate the reality of the new heavens and the new earth…causing us to think and to yearn for the presence of God without indwelling sin and without an environment of sin.
So, do we see that in the manger? Do we celebrate that on Christmas morning? If we don’t, if that is a far away thought, or no thought at all, then we separate ourselves and our holiday from that which we profess both to be about. Christmas is not about the Savior’s infancy, it is about His Deity…the baby, is God, come…to bring us Home.
Verse 3 brings another aspect to us, namely the fact of man’s slavery and the only redemption that can break those great chains. Don’t you find it interesting the numbers of people who will celebrate Christmas who are not those who follow Jesus? And at this time of the year they don’t even mind tipping the hat to Him, maybe singing some songs about Him…The same people who will never have Jesus on their lips the rest of the year? Why is that? Well…a baby…what is threatening about a baby? Babies are not intimidating…And so for many Jesus, stays a baby…He never grows up…because then he can be dealt with…so it is thought.
But Christmas is not about a baby who stays a baby and never grows up. Christmas is about a great dragon who has from the beginning of time sought the destruction of man, seeking to devour the promise of God keeping mankind enslaved to sin, death and hell.
The Christmas story is about warfare, ultimate warfare and ultimate life and death. It is about consummate evil seeking to express hatred to God by destroying the promise of God. It is about nations raging and the clamoring of men. We are very aware of what Herod did to the male babies of Jerusalem. This is the battle and the forces that did this horrible thing, continue to this day with all the fury of evil being directed against us…against the church.
But the day will come, promises our God, a promise in the midst of speaking about Christ’s incarnation and the coming of God the day will come, when God will turn upon those who persecuted the church and,
“…Make them wail…for my name is blasphemed continually every day…therefore my people shall know my name…therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks…Behold it is I.”
Even in the midst of all of this, even in the midst of the hostility that Christ’s coming generates this is still cause for the greatest of all celebrations. But let’s look closely and let us celebrate!
Verses 7-10 are the words of celebration, read them again:
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace… who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation who says to Zion, Your God reigns! Your watchmen shall lift up their voices with their voices they shall sing together, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord brings back Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, you waste places of Jerusalem! For the Lord has comforted His people He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”
The waste places of Jerusalem, describes the circumstances of this world, and yet from those waste places, we will rejoice…we will sing, we will see the glory of God. Our song is not about the waste places for two reasons, one is the restoration of all things is in the hand of Messiah, and second, this world as it currently is constituted, is not our home! We are comforted in the anticipation of the coming Messiah even in the midst of the catastrophes of this life…we are not identified by the wasteland…
And this is what gives Christians our edge, this is the difference, we see what cannot be seen but that is not all, we not only see it, but then we live what we know is true…And it is simply this…the Messiah is OURS…He comes for US, and all trial, and dark circumstance only serves to push us further into this hope. By God’s grace we lift our eyes above the waste places, we see the glory…and we sing…we celebrate…Christ comes for us.
Oh…can you see it? Do you see it, or is it too easy for you to stay focused on the wasteland? What informs, what motivates, what pushes you on in hope, in confidence and trust? And all of this comes in the Servant, in the Christ, the one the world looks at and despises…rejects, but to us, He is the cause of joy, He is lifted up and exalted. And this celebration, this realization of the advent of Christ, both the first and the second, is what causes us to embrace holiness and confidence as we live in this world.
Christmas demands a response…what will ours be?
Prayer: Father, thank you for Your plan and purpose for the world and for me. Thank you for the Savior and for your mercy and love to take all that is broken and to heal it. You are making all things new, help me to see that, to believe that amidst the darkness. Help me to truly anticipate, trust and yearn for the Advent of my Savior, in His name I pray, Amen.
Hymn: O Come All Ye Faithful (This is incredible!)