“See the Sign”
“See the Sign”
Isaiah 7:10-14
Isaiah 7:10-14
If you took the opportunity to watch TV Station CNN very much in past years, a very familiar face was a fellow named Larry King. Larry King was a celebrated interviewer of high-profile personalities in the news. Jewish in background, married 8 times, King was a professed atheist. Over the course of his career Larry interviewed 30,000 people. Once he was asked: “Which individual of all time would like most to interview?” King responded: “Jesus of Nazareth, and I would ask Him just one question: ‘Were you born of a Virgin?’ If He said, ‘yes’, it would make all the difference in the world.”
How right was King on that one! The Virgin birth – you hear it mentioned weekly through the words of the Nicene Creed and moreso this time of the year in the hymns of Advent and Christmas. How do you understand it? – that through the miraculous act of the Holy Spirit, the very being of the eternal Son of God became as the male seed, and so prepared for conception when united with the egg in the womb of the Virgin Mary. In this way the child of Bethlehem was the sinless God/Man. Do you believe it? Of course you do by faith in the words and promises of God! Yet it’s a tough one for our increasingly secular world to buy into. Some skeptics would declare it a myth of the highest order. Others would say the father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, and still others, scholars within the pale of the Christian church, would remain uncommitted. Truly, it’s shrouded in mystery, and then in today’s lesson from Isaiah, it becomes connected with history. Suddenly in the midst of great turmoil the promise of God becoming man seemingly comes out of nowhere.
Circumstances could not be worse for King Ahaz of Judah as he faces a threat to his existence by the hostile coalition of Israel and Syria invading from the north. It’s panic time, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem are shaking like leaves on a tree from a stiff wind. What to do! The prophet Isaiah urges the king to steadfastly trust in God. He is to exercise child-like faith and make God above his refuge. Moreover, to help make this happen, the prophet Isaiah presents Ahaz with a remarkable invitation from God to bolster his faith. The King is encouraged to ask for a sign from God – something like Moses throwing his rod to the ground and it became a serpent. God is ready and willing to perform whatever it takes to get this king to act in good faith. Yet tragically, Ahaz has already decided to make an alliance with Assyria, the current superpower in the region. Trying to be diplomatic, Ahaz makes a pious excuse. He does not want to test the Lord by asking for a sign.
That’s the history, but here’s where the mystery comes in. God sees through the King’s religious hypocrisy and promises a sign anyway: “The Virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a Son and will be called Immanuel.” Isn’t that a contradiction of terms of the first order? “The Virgin will be with child.” O mystery of mysteries, and that we might grasp how wondrous, it involves delving into the distant past by going way back to the time of the temptation in the Garden of Eden and fall of our first parents as God says to the serpent: (I have put this insert in your bulletin).
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between you ________ and the woman ____________ and between your seed _____________ and her seed ____________; He __________ will crush your ________ head. And you ________ will strike His ___________ heel.
At first glance, what’s your response to this ancient prophecy? Why is this passage so significant when it comes to our lives in this world? Are you prone to more write it off as some old and rather puzzling tale? Please don’t. It’s because of the huge stakes involved. And it’s been played out all around you. How are we to ultimately explain the horrendous senseless murders taking place with increasing frequency, the slaughter of the unborn child, the genocide of Rwanda, the Whegars in China, Ukraine, and ultimately the Holocaust? The acts are so cruel and vicious that they go beyond the categories of human behavior. In fact, it goes beyond nature itself. Animals kill for food, not for pleasure, and not a million other animals. No, the culprit can only be the malevolent force from supernatural – the supernatural forces of satan and his principalities and powers that pull the strings at even national levels in this world’s present darkness.
Why is this passage so important for each one of our lives? It’s because satan, the malevolent creature, full of hate has no equal on this earth and would like a cancer have long ago destroyed all those made in the image of God – all of mankind – were it not for the One in our lesson – the Seed of the Woman who ever pushes back with His life and light. Otherwise, we don’t stand a chance. Luther said it in his hymn: On earth is not his equal. So beyond the tinsel, lights, gifts, and the manger scenes, is the other side of Christmas from the cosmic perspective. Behind the shepherds and the three kings – visible ripples on this earth – there were massive disruptions shaking the foundations of the universe. Far more than the birth of a baby, it was the invasion of the God/Man in the great struggle for the cosmos – a life or death struggle as the pushback began with the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem. We’re all a part of this – caught in the middle, in the war between the evil and the good. We’re all fair game for the dark side because Christ through the Holy Spirit has been born within us. We have been made Christ-bearers with the ability to share His life with others. That makes us dangerous, and there’s a price on our heads.
Yet whatever happens in both the near and distant future, we win through Him born of a virgin Who finally crushes the serpent’s head. The Virgin birth. Some have argued that the supreme miracle of Christianity is not the resurrection of Christ from the dead, but the incarnation – God taking on human flesh. The Almighty’s invasion into human existence by becoming a helpless human baby – only able to wiggle, make noises, needing to be fed, changed taught to walk. Yet know His invasion is two-fold as the song expresses it so well. “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So, God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven.” How would, how could the God of the universe accomplish this invasion that you would allow Him to enter the womb of your heart?
Christian author Philip Yancy tells of the time that he kept a saltwater aquarium. He said that it was no easy task. He thought that in view of all the energy spent on their behalf that at least the fish would be grateful. Not so. Every time his shadow loomed above the tank; they dove for cover to the nearest shell. Yancy recognized that to his fish he was deity. He was too large for them, his actions too incomprehensible. His acts of mercy they saw as cruelty; his attempts at healing they viewed as destruction. Then Yancy went on to say that in most religious traditions, fear was the primary emotion when one approached God. And it wasn’t working very well. A new approach was needed, one that would not emphasize the vast gulf between God and humanity, but instead would span it. Then, thinking again of his fish, Philip Yancy recognized that to change their perceptions, would require a form of incarnation. He would have to become a fish and communicate in ways they could understand.
And so it was that God made a surprise appearance as a baby in a manger. In Jesus, God found a way of relating to human beings that did not involve fear. The God Who created matter took shape in it! Like the playwright who became the character within his own play, God wrote Himself into the pages of history. Yes, the Word became flesh, and through our Baptisms, He has been born within us and so written Himself into our life stories and into His everlasting destiny. To do this He had to travel the road of sorrows, take the fall of the cross, and so manifest God’s nature of sacrificial love.
For most of my life, I was like one of the fish in the aquarium. After doing something faithless and defiantly rebellious against God, I would always be fearfully waiting for God’s judgment to come down and crush me in some way. However, increasingly I sense Him in the fishbowl with me. He’s not a foe, but moreso a friend. I am able to fear Him less and love Him more. And likewise for you! He’s in the fishbowl of your individual worlds. Moreover, in our daily lives, He wants to be with us in the best and worst of times – involved in the very center and core of our beings – in the midst of our hopes, dreams, struggles, and dangers with His peaceful and protective Presence.
Back in 1868, Phillips Brooks penned these now ever familiar words: “No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin, where meek souls receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.” Then decades after writing the hymn, Brooks in a letter to a friend shared the outcome of that relationship. “I cannot tell you how personal this grows to me. He is here. He knows me and I know Him. It’s no figure of speech. It is the realest thing in the world, and every day makes it realer. And one wonders with delight what it will grow to as the years go by.” Is there a better expression of Christmas? – the wonderment, newness, freshness, hope of it all. It creates a new atmosphere in our hearts. The Holy Presence releases us from our fears telling us that He is present among us. We need not dread, but rather by faith rejoice and believe the seeming fairy tale of the Great God who became man. Fairy tales begin with “Once upon a time” but not Matthew’s Gospel. Jesu, Immanuel, is grounded in human history and the underlying reality behind all world history – God’s plan to redeem mankind. He is the noble prince Who came to defeat the evil serpent and sorcerer, satan, and bring forth His forever Kingdom. Immanuel, God with us in sorrow, storm, rejection, judgment. In every circumstance of life, He comes to us. By God’s grace may we reflect the sign of His Presence during this Christmas season. May we by faith see it more nearly, dearly, and clearly – to truly comprehend it as far brighter than the neon signs of Christmas as it blazes through all eter