King Ahaz and God's Faithfulness

History

Our reading from Isaiah today takes us back 735 years before Christ was born to yet another perilous time in the history of the Jews. Judah and Israel, both of whom worshipped Yahweh, had gone their separate ways and had been feuding with one another for nearly 200 years.

The great superpower kingdom of Assyria was growing in strength and began to threaten the entire middle-east. Two kingdoms, Israel and Syria, chose to ally themselves against the powerful Assyrian forces and they hoped to have the kingdom of Judah, the home of Jerusalem, join them in their alliance against the powerful Assyrian Empire.

But Judah had a new king… and young king… by the name of Ahaz. Ahaz took the crown of Judah at the age of 20 and was easily impressed by the spectacle of the Assyrian Empire.

The Kings of Israel and Syria decided they couldn’t trust the young king, and chose instead to attack Judah with the hopes of killing King Ahaz and putting a puppet king in his place. But try as they might, the Kings of Israel and Syria could not conquer Jerusalem.

But the alliance that they had forged none-the-less terrorized the young King Ahaz. Driving him to do something unthinkable: he sent a message to king of the Assyrian Empire, the great superpower that was threatening the entire region, and King Ahaz declared, “I am your son, your servant, your vassal, protect me from Israel and Syria!”

In other words, King Ahaz was telling the Assyrians that if they help him out with Israel and Syria, that his kingdom… the Kingdom of Judah and the home of Jerusalem, would belong to the Assyrian Empire. And to prove that he meant what he said, he sent a large shipment of gold and silver taken not only from his own king’s treasury, but from the great Temple of Jerusalem as well. King Ahaz took the offerings given to God by the people and turned them over to the Assyrians as a way to buy their support.

Doing it the Ahaz Way

Now, this is where the Prophet Isaiah makes his big entrance. Isaiah comes before the young King Ahaz and tells him to have faith that God will deliver him from the kings of Israel and Syria.

King Ahaz does not seem to be convinced.

Isaiah says, “Ask for a sign from God! Ask for a miracle! You choose the sign, it can be anything from the greatest of depths to the grandest of heights! Pick the sign yourself and watch God show up!”

But King Ahaz, even when given this unique opportunity to have a Prophet of God tell him, just ask for a miracle and you’ll see God carry it through… even with that put in front of him, King Ahaz declines the offer.

He says that he has faith… but he doesn’t want to put God to the test. Isaiah, however, sees through the smoke and mirrors of piety that Ahaz is putting up. There’s one of two things going through King Ahaz’s mind:

1) The first idea potentially rambling through the king’s mind was that perhaps King Ahaz just didn’t put much stock in faith. Ultimately, faith is a ‘churchy’ thing, not a practical thing. It’s nice to think that way but it doesn’t really work in the real world.

a. A good pastor friend of mine told me about a council meeting he was at where the council was discussing whether or not they would allow a narcotics anonymous group to meet at their church.

b. One of the leaders of the congregation, who was upset by the idea of hosting the group, said, “But pastor, you just can’t be Christian all the time. It isn’t practical!” You could have heard a pin drop after she spoke those words.

2) The second idea potentially going through his mind was, “What if God actually shows up?” You see, King Ahaz had a plan of how he wanted to do things. If God showed up and performed the miracle that the young king asked for, what would that mean for his plans? Giving that opportunity for God to show up meant that he would have been giving up control over the situation.

a. It reminds me of a story about the famous 20th century theologian Karl Barth who had quite the following. He once said, “I hope I never become a Barthian. May God spare me from Barthianism!”

b. The story behind that is that some of his followers wanted to package him in, market him, and sell him for profit as a safe product. But they weren’t able to keep up with the living Karl Barth—his understanding kept growing and changing as he aged, and so they preferred the Karl that they could keep on the printed pages… the one that doesn’t change and that they can use as they want. When they kept him on paper, they could possess him, hold him in their hands… control him… use his words to strengthen their own biases.

c. In the same way, King Ahaz preferred to have a God that was ensnared only on the written word… the idea of a God that was active and engaged in the world terrified him and threatened his power.

d. I think even for us today, it’s easier and certainly safer to keep God in our hands in the books rather than to look for what God might be up to in the world in our age. What if God shows up and it’s not where we expected? What if God’s plan isn’t aligning with our own plans? That would be a conundrum.

Isaiah and Faith

Whatever was going through King Ahaz’s mind, he wouldn’t be the first nor last politician to use religion when it suited him and avoid it when it didn’t align with his goals. But Isaiah doesn’t let King Ahaz or the rest of us off the hook with excuses that faith isn’t practical or that we aren’t sure we want God to come off of the pages and into the world.

Just imagine Isaiah rolling up his sleeves and saying, “Well, if you won’t pick a sign then God will pick one for you.”

So what does God choose as the great miracle to prove God’s activity in the world? Perhaps a grand cavalry charge of angelic hosts at the break of dawn that will crush King Ahaz’s foes? Maybe a meteor will fall from the sky and flatten his enemies, that would be quite the sight to see. But no… none of these.

Instead, Isaiah says the sign will be a baby, born to a young woman. That child, who shall be named Immanuel, or “God is with us” will be the sign from God to Judah.

I can’t help but wonder what went through King Ahaz’s mind in that moment that he heard the sign from God would be a new-born baby. I seriously doubt that would have made the young king’s top ten list of proofs he would like to have seen from God as he was embroiled in warfare against Israel and Syria. A legion of soldiers or a few tanks would be great; but a baby?!? That would not be enough to make a difference in a world where there was such immediate need.

And yet, Isaiah tells King Ahaz, King of Judah, to stand firm in faith. Now when we hear the phrase “stand firm in your faith” it tends to come across that we are supposed to stand up for our personal convictions about what we should or should not do. Stand firm in your faith, resist temptation! Do not sin! That sort of thing.

But standing firm in the faith to Isaiah did not mean that he expected King Ahaz to have all of the correct theological answers or to lead a sin-free life, but rather Isaiah hoped that King Ahaz would stand firm in the faith by leaning on God when the going became difficult.

Faith, Isaiah claims, is not just some intellectual theory but it is a practical reliance on the promises of God in difficult times when our own resources are not going be ‘enough’ to get us through. Faith means entrusting our own security and future to the care of Yahweh—to count on God’s attentiveness as being enough to make up for our lack of resources.

Some might argue that this means that if we have faith that we shouldn’t have anxiety, or stress, or depression… I would argue with that. I would say that Faith means that we have reason to hope even when we can plainly see that there should be no hope at all. That’s because faith is precisely for times of conflict, threat, and danger, when circumstances would dictate fear instead of trust.

Promise of the Manger and Faith Today

Part of the assertion of Isaiah to King Ahaz as well as to us as we near Christmas is that faith, this reliance on God, shapes us. Faith is not just a ‘churchy’ thing that comes and goes but instead it becomes central to the core of who we are as individuals and as a community together.

Isaiah reminds us that we are blessed with the opportunity of leaning on and relying on the God… the one who breathes us into existence… the one who brings order out of chaos. And pushing that further, Isaiah declares that God is not just the backup plan in case things go sour—but rather God is our go-to even as we try to work out the difficulties that life throws at us.

We can look for God to show up and expect that it will happen. It may not be the meteor falling from the sky on that pesky neighbor that we hoped for, and so we may not always see God, but God is showing up in your life on a daily basis. The ancient Hebrew understanding of God is that God is continuously breathing us into existence. Therefore, each breath that we take is proof of the promise of God’s faithfulness to us and to the continuation of all creation.

And it is the many fulfilled promises of scripture that urges us on to sing O Come, O Come Emmanuel as we seek God in the midst of challenge. And then, as we recognize God showing up in our lives, we move to rejoicing with Joy to the World as we hear and see the promises of God fulfilled.