Isaiah: A Child Is Born
Sacred Mythos (Narrative Lectionary) • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.
For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood
shall be burned as fuel for the fire.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
I want to start today a little differently. We’ve been working in this Narrative Lectionary since September, charting the story arc of the Scriptures from Creation, ultimately to Pentecost, where we will wrap up in June. We are in the thick of it with the Hebrew prophets, this week focusing on Isaiah.
But let’s not lose sight of what this is all point us towards. Narrative structure is helpful. But we also need to recognize that narrative has a telos, an ultimate end, in mind. It’s going somewhere.
In a very real way, the arc of the Scriptures is something of a chiasm, in structure. Meaning, it’s like an hourglass, where the broader narrative focuses in at a point where there is a moment of change and reconfiguring. It then opens up again from the point with a new vision and outpouring into the future.
Christians have come to see that arc and chiasm in how the Hebrew texts point towards the longed for Messiah. The one who would set things to rights.
This Messiah is someone we’ve been learning about, slowly, as we’ve heard our New Testament passages, all of them echoing their Hebrew scriptural context, and pointing, slowly, deliberately, towards Jesus.
I want to read through all of the John scriptures we’ve heard accompanying our preaching texts. From September, to today, here is what we’ve heard about Jesus, the Messiah:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
It might be difficult for us to hear this Isaiah passage in it’s proper context because of how much we are pointing towards Christmas and the birth of the Christ.
Unto us, a child is born. We hear Handel’s Messiah echoing in our minds.
And I’m going to say, it’s right to look to the coming Christ, the promised one. That’s what the fulfillment and embodiment of this passage looks like. It’s hard not to, as we sit in this position with a Christo-centric understanding of these ancient texts.
With this in mind, a little more background on the prophet Isaiah. A quick overview:
The Isaiah prophetic tradition is centered during the reign of Hezekiah, but also prefigures, then speaks of, and finally responsed to the conflict between Israel and the Assyrians and ultimately their exile and homecoming. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are corrupt, sinful, and longing still for kingly leadership. It’s the same story that we’ve been working through.
The Isaiah narrative also holds King David in high esteem, as the example or the first principal of what kingship looks like. David foreshadows the Messiah.
Scholars understand Isaiah to be a compilation of 3 distinct sections — chapters 1-39, which warn of impending judgement; chapters 40-55, which speak of hope during the Babylonian exile, and chapters 56-66, which deals with Israel post-exile. This means the book is less of a direct narrative or vision by one speaker, and most commonly thought of today as a gathering of the tradition of Isaiah’s wisdom and prophetic teaching.
I loved studying Isaiah in seminary, by the way.
But I want to give us a moment to also pause and consider how memory and hope work.
Hope is a memory for the future, a reverberation of God’s enacted goodness, echoing forward in time, inviting us to see promise and possibility beyond our current state. Hope is a vision of God’s promises, out ahead of us. Hope isn’t always tactile or certain, hope relies on faith and trust.
Hope is also not something we can conjure up. Trust me, I’m constantly trying to. But when I rely on my own inner strength to establish hope in my heart, I know I will falter. I remember a conversation in my early years here, where we were discussing some financial issue. I remember wanting to communicate hope for the church, hope for our situation. But it came out as a frustrated blurt — I remember saying “I can’t be the only one holding hope for this congregation.” I felt like it was my responsibility. Partly because I did not see that hope in my fellow elders, I did not see trust in God’s goodness, I did not see imagination or possibility. I saw fear and clutching onto the present, a denial of hope for the future. And it frustrated me. It still frustrates me. But I’m coming to recognize that hope is not something I or you can conjure.
Hope has to come from outside of us. Hope is God’s doing. We do not manifest it. It is God’s action, in us, moving out ahead of us. We do not conjure it. We do not hold it by our own sheer initiative. God initiates hope.
If we are looking for hope in ourselves alone, we will be disappointed. We will keep being like the people walking in darkness.
So what does this kind of hope look like? Who to we place our hope in.
Well, this passage affirms a broader understanding in the tradition of Isaiah — Hope comes from the Servant of God.
Throughout Isaiah, we hear about the Suffering Servant, the one in whom God puts trust and purpose. God directs the servant, guides their voice, makes them a beacon, a light, to the nations. That is what the Messiah does. It is a named reality that the Messiah will be this way, follow the way of the servant. It echoes of David’s kingly reign, but offers a grander, more whole, fulfilled direction. The one who provides hope will be the one who God’s voice speaks through and who will endure suffering for the people, the one who will bring justice to the oppressed, not through might, but through sacrifice and resurrection. Hope.
The old hymn echoes this truth: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”
It is not our righteousness or the justice of the nations. It is upon the Servant, the one in whom God delights, that we place our hopes.
There is also this refrain that our text echoes, which is about how the people who follow the Servant, the Messiah, they will see clearly. They will walk in the light, not darkness. When we try to generate our own hope, conjure it somehow, we will continue to walk in darkness. The text says that the people have “seen a great light.” It is beyond us, we see it. That’s why, when we get to advent, we talk about waiting and promise and seeing the dawn. It’s God’s action outside of us that brings hope.
I love the closing line of our passage: The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Not our effort. Not our wisdom. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Zeal — passion, enthusiasm, energy, dynamism — these are all words that we would also use to describe the Spirit of the Lord, God’s “way”. The prophet tells us that it is the zealous initiative of God that brings us hope.
So, of course, our cry must be — Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Messiah. Come and show us hope.
I want to close with some questions, and hopefully expand our wonderings about this text beyond it being simply a precursor to the Advent story.
What would it mean for you or me to be walking in darkness right now? Is it confusion, blindness, staggering? How are you walking in darkness?
Not a judgement question — just simply wonder, where am I only able to see my feet below, but no path ahead? Where am I walking in darkness?
The next set of questions: Where do you see light? What brings light into your life? In much the same way, we do not generate light, light is. In darkness, even a small shaft of light can change our view. Is there a light up head? Is there something or someone that is helping you see more clearly, with more hope?
I long to be someone who seeks the light, day in and day out. The path is dark, a lot of the time. For the people of God, this darkness looked like sin, corruption, injustice, and oppression from outside. To seek the light is to look beyond these things, over and against these things, and seeking it.
Will we be a people who hope? Or will we sit where we are and expect to be able to conjure it up on our own?
I’ll close with this: I have actually found it most useful to think of hope as something I hold for others. It’s not something I can make, but it is something I can hold for you. I can look at your life and witness the possibility of God’s action, perhaps when you cannot imagine that yourself. And you can do that for me. Hope is something we cannot just initiate, but it can be something that God does through us, for each other. I hold hope for you. You hold hope for me. We do this because we trust in God’s promises.
Will we be a people who hope?
