"Perpetual Peace:" Christmas Day (December 25, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

This is the month, and this the happy morn,

Wherein the Son of Heavn’s eternal King

Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born

Our great redemption from above did bring

For so the holy sages once did sing

That he our deadly forfeit should release,

And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

This is an excerpt from “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” by John Milton and I thought it would be appropriate for use this morning because it’s a good reminder that beyond the good food and presents, family traditions, and the hustle and bustle of the season, we are here to celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. He is the reason for the season. What I love during this season is the way that Christmas fulfills the Old Testament promises God made to Israel. Long had the world, sitting in darkness, been waiting for and anticipating the light. We got little glimmers of it, like in Genesis 3:15 when God promised that their seed would crush the head of the serpent, or in our reading today from Isaiah 9 which speaks of a coming Child who would deliver the people from darkness. Still, these were but faint visions for the people who received these prophecies. But “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman" (Gal 4:4). And that is what we celebrate today: the fact that God stepped into space and time to undertake the greatest rescue mission of all time. On Christmas, we remember that the Messiah has visited us, and that he will make the world right.

Our reading from Isaiah 9 is a Messianic prophecy that was partially fulfilled in the first coming of Jesus and will be fully realized when he comes again. There are some who say this prophecy was a coronation liturgy composed for the accession of King Hezekiah, Josiah, or one of the other Kings of Judah. And it may be that the King of Judah at the time of Isaiah was a type of what was to come. But this oracle is clearly about more than just a human King. While the Psalmist warns us to “Put not your trust in princes,” the figure to whom Isaiah refers is one who brings light to the “people that walked in darkness” and “dwell in the land of the shadow of death.” Further, if this passage was just a coronation liturgy, why does Isaiah look for a child? “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” And finally, while the Israelites thought highly of their kings, they would have never identified their kings as God, but that’s what Isaiah does: “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” This cannot be about a merely human king.

If Isaiah isn’t writing about a human king of Israel in his day, then what does it mean when he says “the government shall be upon his shoulder”? Well first, we should point out that the government Christ carries is the Davidic King. We know that God promised David his seed would reign on the throne of Israel forever, and that promise is fulfilled in Jesus and his reign over the Church. But “the government shall be upon his shoulder” was most often interpreted by the Church Fathers to be about the Cross. “This signifies the power of the cross, which, at his crucifixion, he placed on his shoulders,” Justin Martyr wrote in the second century. Tertullian, who didn’t live long after, asked, “What king is there who bears the ensign of his dominion upon his shoulder, and not rather upon his head as a diadem, or in his hand as a scepter, or else as a mark in some royal apparel? But the one new King of the new ages, Jesus Christ, carried on his shoulder both the power and excellence of his new glory, even his cross; so that, according to our former prophecy, he might thenceforth reign from the tree as Lord.” By choosing to become Incarnate, Jesus puts to shame human reasoning and attempts to grasp power because he manifests the power of God in things we would deem foolish. Who would have thought that a Jewish baby laying in a trough in first century occupied Israel who was later executed as a common criminal by the occupying power was God? This is exactly what this morning’s Epistle points to: “Who, being in the form of God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

And yet in this humility is how we find peace. Jesus is the Prince of Peace, Isaiah tells us. “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.” The peace that Jesus brings can be read in different senses. There is an eschatological sense in which he’ll bring peace when he returns. Isaiah hints at this when he talks about the weapons and objects used for war being fuel for fire: they’ll be obsolete and unnecessary. But that’s for the future, we aren’t there yet (though we could be at any time!). There is, however, a present sense in which Jesus brings peace. By becoming the Incarnate God-man, through his Birth, Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, he makes relationship between God and man possible. And when we as creatures are in full communion with God, we experience a peace which passeth all understanding. Not because things are always great; far from it. Because even in the midst of the worst circumstances, we know that we are securely in the love of God and “neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And so you can experience that peace. I can experience that peace. Our family members, friends, neighbors, and everyone we come into contact with can experience that peace.

We can experience this peace more directly when we encounter Jesus in the Scriptures and receive the Sacraments. Here’s a cool thought: the Holy Scriptures were written by human authors in particular times and places. However, it’s also true that the Holy Spirit wrote the Scriptures and he knew you were going to pick them up at any given moment. Scripture then is a means by which God communicates with us. And the same is true in the Sacrament of the Altar where we come week after week after week to be nourished by him. He knows where we’ve been; he knows what our struggles are; he knows where we’re going and he gives us what we need. And so we can trust in him because he is the ruler of creation. He’s not an unpredictable despot like the pagan gods, he’s not unreliable like human rulers. He’s God of God, Light of Light, who was born in a trough and died on the Cross for you. When we really grapple with who the baby in the manger is, we can rest in the peace he imparts to us.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.