Advent in Isaiah: The Fight for Home (Isaiah 9:1-7)

Total Tank Santa

It’s part of the season to watch Christmas movies. One of my favorites is Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause. As we think about where we’re headed today in our Bible talk I was reminded of a scene in The Santa Clause where Scott Calvin, who is already having a bad day, is in the boardroom with his work colleagues and he’s listening to a pitch for a new toy. Scott Calvin (who we know is really Santa Claus) comes unglued when one of his co-workers pitches the idea of a Total Tank Santa. Scott is horrified. “Since when does Santa need a tank?” is basically the mood. The whole thing feels wrong on its face, like someone jammed Santa into a story he doesn’t belong to.

And he’s right to be frustrated. Santa doesn’t fit the tank context. The whole idea of Santa is gift, surprise, kindness, generosity. You strap him to a panzer and you’ve betrayed the story you’re telling. You’ve tried to package comfort and joy in the language of shock and awe, and the mismatch is so obvious it’s funny. But that kind of contrast is at the heart of Isaiah’s Advent message this morning.

Coming home for Christmas: Burning Bloody Boots

During this advent season, we’re making our way through 1517’s Coming Home for Christmas advent devotional. This week, one of the devotionals centered on Isaiah 9:5, not exactly what we would expect to be a topic for advent. In fact, the language of Isaiah 9:5 is R-rated, for Mature audiences only.

Here's how it goes:

“For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire.” (Isaiah 9:5)

Yikes. Not exactly the warm fuzzies. But this is in keeping with the military language of Isaiah 9. When Isaiah talks about people “walking in darkness,” he’s not describing a cozy, dimly lit room; he’s naming the terror of living under occupation—confusion, fear, not knowing where the next blow is coming from. In fact, Israel is in exile. Far from home. In Babylon.. in a culture that is not their own. Darkness. Now… Isaiah is going to provide them hope… :

“Those in darkness have seen a great light. You have increased its joy… they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil.”

That’s battlefield talk: soldiers coming home after a war, arms full of plunder, celebrating because the enemy’s camp is now empty and their own hands are finally full.

But before they experience any of this… Isaiah reminds them of what God is doing for them in rescuing them… God shatters...

their oppressive yoke

     the rod on their shoulders,

     the staff of their oppressor (Isaiah 9:4)

 “their oppressive yoke, the rod on their shoulders, the staff of their oppressor”..Those are the tools of control—what a master puts on the neck of a slave, what a taskmaster uses to drive and beat, what an occupying army uses to keep people in line. But Isaiah is not done. He gets absolutely graphic with how bad it is…

“For every trampling boot of battle and the bloodied garments of war will be burned as fuel for the fire.” (Isaiah 9:5)

Trampling boots. Bloodied garments. Burned as fuel. Yes, the yoke has been broken. The oppression will come to an end. But in that scene we see trampling boots and bloodied garments. It doesn’t stop with the slavery imagery… trampling boots and bloodied garments.. is the imagery of death. Gory death. Warfare death. Not exactly things we’d find in our cozy manger scenes. But here’s the thing… that manger scene is an act of war.

One of the all-time quoted verses for Advent and Christmas, especially Christmas Day, is the very next verse:

For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us. (Isaiah 9:6)

We look at that verse through the Christmas card lens, completely ignoring the context. The context is verse 5… trampling boots and bloodied garments. What is Isaiah getting at? Israel is headed for exile. Assyria is threatening. Babylon is a rising threat. There will be trampling boots and bloodied garments coming for Israel. But what’s the answer? More power? Greater power? A better argument? More money? More cunning? Better expertise?

Nope. Not even close. A baby. A son. Are you kidding me? The trampling boots and bloody garments of verse 5 do not get an answer in more boots and more blood. They get their answer in the Child of verse 6.

The manger as an Act of War

You see… those manger scenes we set up on mantels, in church narthexes, and even front yards of our neighborhoods—Mary, Joseph, the Child laid in a feeding trough, shepherds hurrying in from the fields—is not just a sweet pastoral image; it is an act of war. Into a small village where Caesar is demanding a census, a King that is not of this world is born. Angels show up as a heavenly host… that’s a heavenly army, announcing the Good News of a baby that was born into an animal feed trough. The sign of the baby wrapped in cloths lying in a manger is God’s way of saying.. this is how I wage war. Eventually that baby is going to establish a new kingdom, where He will overthrow the powers of sin, death, and the devil by the weakness of this Child… using forgiveness and grace.

That’s not how we would do it. But God says I’m going to wage war and win it using a baby.. a son.

God wins by weakness

God wins by weakness. He conquers by being conquered. He breaks the power of death by passing through death on a cross. Isaiah’s message doesn’t stop with the birth… here’s how the baby is described:

The government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. (Isaiah 9:7)

Isaiah piles up names to show us what kind of Warrior this Child is. He is the Wonderful Counselor, who wages war by speaking—proclaiming forgiveness into shame and truth into confusion. He is the Mighty God, the Warrior-God, but He comes in a manger; He is the Eternal Father in the sense that the Son reveals the Father’s heart—this war is aiming at rescue because he absolutely loves us. And He is the Prince of Peace, not the prince of pleasant feelings, but the One who makes peace by bearing wrath and absorbing conflict in His own body.

And the Kingdom he establishes will have no end. Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom of light, a light that completely obliterates the darkness. This kingdom is a kingdom whose primary characteristics are grace, forgiveness, salvation, and life. It’s a kingdom where grace and love have the final say, because that’s the work of the Child Warrior for His people.

Advent as Spiritual Warfare

So Advent is anything but tulips and roses. Isaiah will not let Advent stay cozy. Advent usually arrives wrapped in soft background music, candles, lights on the house, and maybe—even here in the Valley—an inflatable snowman trying to survive the heat. All of that can be good and joyful. But Isaiah hands us an image of boots stomping through mud, uniforms soaked in blood, and then, in the same breath, a child.

Advent, according to Isaiah, is spiritual warfare. The violence, fear, and chaos that shake the earth are met, not by God out-violencing the violent, but by God stepping under the weight of that violence Himself. The baby in the manger is the One who will one day wear His own garments rolled in blood on the cross, so that the boots and uniforms of every other war can finally be thrown into the fire. The field soaked with human blood is answered by the blood of God in the flesh, shed once for all, and that is why Isaiah dares to say the instruments of war are already marked for burning.

So what does Advent as spiritual warfare look like in actual life—in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods here in the Valley? The battle shows up in all sorts of ways that are very, very real, but where we least expect it… often in the mundane. It shows up in the thought life… “it’s never going to change, it’s always going to be this way.” Unkind words. The need to always win. The cynicism that creeps in with the Gospel: “I’ve heard it all before, just give me something to do.” The busyness that is consistently pushing aside Word and Sacrament. All this stuff.. this is where the war happens.

And into those places, Christ continues to fight for us with His own chosen weapons: the Means of Grace. When the Gospel is preached and you hear, “In the name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven,” this is not religious background noise. The Wonderful Counselor is speaking into your story, confronting lies with truth and silencing accusations with His verdict: forgiven. In that moment there is a real clash between the Accuser’s voice and Christ’s voice, and Christ wins.

Christ fights; you receive

Spiritual warfare boils down to this: Christ fights; you receive.

That’s it. Christ fights. You receive. We’re not used to thinking about spiritual warfare this way. You go to any number of places where Christians are being instructed on spiritual warfare.. it’s all about what we do. The spiritual disciplines… reading your Bible, praying, going to church, doing good things for your neighbors, social justice. And it’s all over the name it and claim it stuff we hear.. the health, wealth and prosperity Gospel that pushes a macho and victorious Christianity. But that’s not how the Bible describes it. Christ fights. You receive.. in His Word and in His Sacraments. That’s the Baby in the Manger who died FOR YOU, and in doing so, conquered sin, evil, death, and the devil… all those evil things that would do us harm.

As we wait for Jesus to return and make all things right, Advent steps in and invites you and I to name the war honestly for what it is: the unbelief and lack of faith that seems to be always present, the fears you carry, the habits you can’t seem to shake, the resentments you nurture, the places you feel stuck. We carry all these in through that door on Sundays, and Jesus in his mercy and grace and forgiveness, wages war against all of it.

Advent does not send you in search of dramatic spiritual experiences. Jesus’ grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love is everything you need in a home. And that grace, mercy, love and forgiveness sets the tone for life with our families, and life with everyone we come in contact with during the week. The Child-turned-Crucified-turned-Risen Jesus sends you back into your home, your job, your school, your congregation, your neighborhood (i.e. where we work, learn, live, and play). The enemy is always at war. The enemy wants those same places deformed: coldness or harshness in the home, dishonesty or indifference at work, apathy toward the Church, isolation in the neighborhood, and narcissism where we play. Jesus meets the enemy through us.. when we pay grace forward we are being used by Jesus to keep the enemy at bay.

The Fight for Home

We expect Jesus to fight the war like we would do it. We expect the tank. We expect God to roll in with something like “Total Tank Messiah,” crushing the trampling boots and burning the bloody garments by sheer force. Instead, the camera pans over to a manger. No armor. No cannon. Just a baby. The surprise of Christmas is not that God finally joins our war games, but that He steps into the battlefield in a way that makes our categories look absurd. Where the world says, “Bring a tank,” the Father sends a Child.

The reality is.. we like the tank version of Jesus. We want smash Jesus… the Jesus who smashes things, because we think this world is all about power moves. What we don’t realize is that that life is precisely the life in darkness that Isaiah is talking about. It never ceases to amaze me that our fight for our own homes is so full of animosity and fracture and a lack of peace, and if we had to put a finger on the problem it’s because we’re all about winning the fight. “My house, my rules” while a helpful boundary, can become a thing that fosters a lack of peace… that’s “smash Jesus” in real time and space setting up barriers to relationship.

If Advent is spiritual warfare, then “Coming Home for Christmas” means something deeper than nostalgia; it means Christ has come into the world, not with a tank, but as a child in a manger, to fight for a true home for us—first by being born into our homelessness (no room in the inn, laid in a manger), then by bearing our sins and shattered relationships to the cross, and now by gathering us into His Father’s house through Word and Sacrament. Jesus wages war, even now, to create this home for you and I, a war he has already won, but still playing out in our lives and hearts.

In this Advent war for home, we don’t win by forcing everyone to behave or by manufacturing the perfect holiday; we “fight” by returning again and again to the One who makes a home with sinners—hearing His forgiveness, eating and drinking at His Table, letting His peace interrupt our patterns of anger, avoidance, and despair. And as we do, our homes here in the RGV, and our home here in San Benito, become outposts of the Home we’re ultimately waiting for—the day when the Child of Isaiah 9 finishes what He started… when the exile of His people will be over. No more fracture. No more loneliness.. we will be home with Jesus who is our Home and will be our home forever. All home, all the time...

Let’s Pray.

The Table

Here at the Table, the Prince of Peace feeds you with Himself—His true body and blood, given and shed for you. This is the same body that trampled the serpent, the same blood that stilled the Law’s condemnation. Here, at the Table, Jesus does not merely remind you of a victory; He delivers the fruits of that victory into your hands and onto your lips. The Supper is not spiritual décor—it is nourishment for people in a war Christ has already won. And it’s here Jesus fights for you. Christ fights; you receive.

Benediction