Christmas – a season of hope

As we approach December 25th, the country (the world) is gearing up for the celebration of Christmas. The most commercial of holidays. It is the time of year when everyone is buying gifts and throwing parties. Lots of candy will be eaten, stories of Santa will be told, and the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth will be told.

Christmas is a time that brings childhood memories to mind. Gifts will be purchased at a frantic pace. With the economic crunch going on right now, the average American is expected to spend 1.9% more on Christmas gifts this year than they did last year, which means they will spend just over $800. That’s right, the average American will spend $832 on Christmas gifts (more info here).

We, as Christians, often bemoan the crass consumerism of our American culture, but we buy into it just as much. We assuage our guilty consciences by using many little cliches to remind ourselves of the true significance of Christmas.

The reason for the season

Putting Christ back in Christmas

This year, I want to dedicate four weeks to the Christmas story. I want us to look at it from four different perspectives.

First, today, I want us to look forward to the birth of Christ, from the perspective of the Old Testament writers/readers. This will give us a view of Christmas infused with hope. Hope for a Messiah to rescue us from the sin and death of this world.

Next week we’ll look at Christmas in the Gospel of Matthew and from the perspective of the Jewish desire for a king. We’ll see Jesus as our King of Kings.

The third week we’ll look at Christmas in the Gospel of Luke and from the perspective of a Gentile writer. We’ll see the importance of the dual nature of Christ as both God and man.

The last week we’ll look at Christmas in the book of Revelation. We’ll see Christmas from an entirely new perspective. We’ll see it from the spiritual realm, seeing it not as a peaceful event with candles, soft music, and cookies, but rather, we’ll see it as D-day, a spiritual invasion of Satan’s domain by Jesus. Christ as victor.

Let’s start in Genesis. That’s where the Christmas story really begins. God created the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, who then sinned by disobeying God’s command. We call this The Fall. This is the point in time at which sin entered into the human race. Because sin requires death as a punishment, there was now a need for humans to be rescued from sin and death.

14 The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
       cursed are you above all livestock
       and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
      and dust you shall eat
      all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
      and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
      and you shall bruise his heel.” - Genesis 3:14-15

Here we see the promised Messiah for the first time. Hope is given to the human race. Hope that in the future God would, in some way, triumph over Satan, and the sin of Adam and Eve. We learn that the coming savior would be the offspring of the woman.

Now, fast forward to Deuteronomy 18:15-19. In this passage, Moses tells the people of a future Prophet who will come and speak the words of God. In the Gospel of John 1:21, the priests ask John the Baptist

“Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”

In Acts 3:20-26 Peter gives a sermon in which he identifies Jesus as “The Prophet” promised by Moses.

So this passage in Deuteronomy is a foretelling of Jesus. Throughout the OT we continue to see the promise of the Messiah more specifically defined. God chooses Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, then Judah, then David as the line through which the Messiah will come.

To find the primary OT texts concerning the birth of the Messiah, we need to turn to the book of Isaiah. Let’s start in chapter 7:14-17.

In this passage, King Ahaz is having a weak moment of faith and the prophet Isaiah encourages him to strengthen his faith by asking for a sign from the Lord. He refuses. He has placed his faith in the king of Assyria to save him from his enemies. So the Lord offers a sign of his salvation. His ultimate salvation.

So God says the sign of his salvation will be a son, born to a virgin. Some will suggest to you that this Hebrew word simply means “young woman” and not “virgin.” The word actually refers specifically to an unmarried and sexually chaste young woman or maiden. It comes from a root word that means “to lie hidden.”

200 years before the birth of Christ, Jewish scholars translated the OT into Greek for the Greek speaking, Hellenistic, Jews spread around the Roman empire. This translation is called the Septuagint. When they translated this passage in Isaiah, they used the Greek word parthenos, which specifically means “virgin.”

Matthew quotes this passage in his Gospel (Matthew 1:23), which we’ll look at next week, applying it to Jesus birth. He uses the same Greek word the Septuagint uses. If we let Scripture interpret Scripture, there is no way around understanding Isaiah to mean virgin.

The prophecy can be confusing because of it’s immediate application in the time of King Ahaz, but the point is that the virgin birth was prophesied 800 years prior to Jesus’ birth.

The name Immanuel has significance. The name literally means “God with us.” That is the entire point of Jesus’ birth. We were estranged from God because of our sin. A perfect sacrifice was needed to atone for our sin and restore our relationship with God. We were completely incapable of fulfilling such a requirement, so God himself had to enter the human world, live a perfect life, and die the perfect death to be the propitiation for our sins. Propitiation means to appease God and satisfy his wrath. That is the entire point of the incarnation (the embodiment of God in human flesh). We’ll talk more about the virgin birth and its importance when we study the Christmas story in the book of Luke two weeks from now.

Now let’s turn a couple pages over and look at Isaiah 9:1-7. Here we see mention of Galilee. Speaking in the past tense because of the nature of his vision, Isaiah tells us that God was going to make Galilee glorious. Like the narrowing of the biological line through which the Messiah will come, we also see an increasing specificity concerning his geographical origins. First it was promised in Genesis that God would bless all nations through Abraham (Genesis 12:3), and he gave him the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:8). Now it has been narrowed down to Galilee, and in Micah 5:2 we are specifically told it is the town of Bethlehem in which he will be born.

Continuing in Isaiah, God promises that though they are in the darkness of despair, overrun by an enemy, yet salvation is coming. Light in the midst of darkness.

Imagine if you will, that you are standing on a bluff overlooking the sea. Not a calm see, but a stormy one. It is night and a terrible storm rages. The waves crash against the rocks, the wind howls through the night, the thunder rolls ominously. There are occasional flashes of lightning, but they do not illuminate enough to make walking along the edge of this bluff safe. Far out across the waves you see a bright spot of light. It is a gap in the clouds and the moonlight is streaming through, shining on the water below. In the darkness, the moonlight is brilliantly white and bright.

This is how Charles Spurgeon describes the experience of the prophet Isaiah. He is standing in the midst of a world filled with darkness and despair. The storm of sin and death rages all around him. There is the occasional flash of lightning. The grace of God demonstrated in the life of Abraham, or Moses, or David, but they are short lived and tainted by sin themselves. Yet as the prophet looks across the ocean of time, he sees a moment in time when the clouds will be rolled back and the light of God’s grace will shine through. That moment is the earthly life of Jesus. He is the only light in the darkness of our sinful lives.

If we can discern any brightness in our own hearts, or in the world’s history, it can come from nowhere else, than from the one who is called “Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God.”  ¹

This is verse 2 of chapter 9.

Not only does Christ bring light to the darkness, but he also breaks the oppression and bondage of sin in our lives. Notice that the oppression will be broken, the enemy defeated, only by the power of God (v4). Midean was a nation over which Gideon won a victory that would have been impossible but for the power of God. With 300 men, armed with torches and trumpets, they went to battle against an overwhelming force. God defeated their enemies for them (Judges 6-7). Isaiah says the triumph of the coming Messiah will be like that day. Through no effort of our own can we defeat the enemy of our soul. Through no strength of our own can we overcome sin which holds us captive. The Lord defeats the enemy and overcomes our captor. How?

Isaiah 9:6-7 tells us it begins with the birth of a baby.

A son is to be born. This child is “given” to us as a gift. 

“…when you hear, A child has been born to us, make the two letters US as large as heaven and earth and say, The child is born, it is true; but for whom is he born? Unto US, for us he is born says the prophet. He was not born solely to his mother, the Virgin Mary, nor solely for his compatriots, his brethren and kinfolk, the Jews. Much less was he born to God in heaven, who was in no need of the birth of this child; but he was born unto us humans on earth.”  ²

He is given to us as a savior and we know from Scripture that all who call on the name of Jesus will be saved (Romans 10:13), and that his is the only name that saves.

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. – Acts 4:12

He is the King of universe, and this tiny child, born to the virgin, will rule. His rule is very different from that of an earthly king. An earthly king rules from the top down. He is the above his subjects, and they carry him on their backs, with taxes, with labor, with service, etc. But in Christ’s kingdom it is different. He is the King of Kings, and yet he carries his kingdom on His back. His kingdom being the church, all those who believe in him and trust in him for salvation. The king serves the subjects, he carries the kingdom on his back as a suffering servant. He bore more than just our sins, he carries us as he transfers us from the kingdom of the world into his eternal kingdom. He carries us through the trials of this world, as a shepherd carries a wounded sheep across his shoulders.

The prophet goes on to give the coming Messiah several names, which all have importance to our understanding of who he is.

Wonderful Counselor: A counselor is someone who gives wise advice. 

In Genesis we saw Adam and Eve get counsel that was not wise. They took the counsel offered them by Satan and rebelled against God, bringing only death and despair onto themselves and all their offspring. Satan is not a wonderful counselor, but a wicked counselor.

Colossians 2:3 tells us that in Christ

…are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

All wisdom is his. He is the most wonderful counselor anyone could ever have, and he has been given to us. His counsel is given to us in His Word. It is a treasure trove of knowledge, wisdom, and advice. Scripture itself teaches (Ps 119:97-100) that meditating on God’s law will make you wiser than your enemies, teachers, and aged. Christ’s Word must be the first place we go for counsel in any situation. It is by His Word that Christ comforts, shepherds, uplifts, and advises us. We must cling to Scripture as the treasure that it is.

Mighty God: This name tells of unparalleled strength and divinity. This isn’t just “a god” in the sense that many ancient peoples had gods, but he is the Mighty God, the God to whom none can compare. His counsel is not ineffective, but is upheld by the power of his might. The wisdom and advice of a most powerful God is worth following. He comforts us and advises us, and then rescues us by his mighty hand.

Colossians tells us that he created all things, and that all of creation holds together in him (Colossians 1:16-17). Hebrews tells us that he holds the universe together by the power of his word (Hebrews 1:2-3). It is a frightening thing to contemplate the idea of a God so mighty that he not only created all things, but continues to hold all things together by the power of his word. To realize that you have offended this all powerful creator by honoring yourself instead of him, and that the absolutely just and righteous answer to your sin, is death. There is no way you can ever repay him for the wrong you have done, there is no way you can appease his anger. That is a terrible realization.

The next two names offer us comfort after the realization of his might.

Everlasting Father: This title is not be confused with the Trinitarian title of God the Father. Here it is describing the work the Messiah does as a father to his people. Elsewhere in the OT, kings are at times referred to as “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem” (Isaiah 22:21). Job refers to himself as “a father to the needy” (Job 29:16). Jesus exercises such fatherly care over his people.

This name is a comfort after the last. Though he is Mighty God and King, he treats us as a father treats his children, with love and tenderness.

Unlike earthly kings who are there for a time and then pass away, his care for his people will endure forever. Thus he is called the Everlasting Father. Martin Luther argues that if he is to be to us an Everlasting Father, then we must be forever his children with no chance of disownment.

Prince of Peace: The word prince comes from the Hebrew sar, which means chieftain, ruler, captain, governor, or prince. And the word peace is the Hebrew shalom which we have discussed in the past. It means more than simply the cessation of strife and conflict, including also the idea of completeness, wholeness, and health. The Kingdom over which Christ rules, is one of shalom. He brings both an end to war, and a healing of the wounds of war.

“…man is a creature who has turned away from God, and is godless and evil, subject to the power of the devil, under the wrath of God, and guilty of eternal death. It is for the sake of such desperate scoundrels, that is, for the sake of mankind that was lost and condemned, that Christ was born.”  ³

The promise of the Messiah was a promise of great hope. Hope for victory over Satan and sin. A deliverance which humanity has been in need of since the third chapter of Genesis. Hope for lasting security and deliverance. Hope for shalom, for peace and healing from the effects of our sin, which put us at odds with God. God chose

…through him [Jesus] to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:20)

Before he could get to the cross, he had to be born and live life among us (Immanuel). 

So the story of Jesus birth is one of extreme hope and joy! Celebrate it!

 

1. Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons (Baker Books, 5th printing, 2007) v.5 p. 16
2. Martin Luther, Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (Baker Books, 2nd printing, 2007) p.215-216
3. Martin Luther, Complete Sermons of Martin Luther (Baker Books, 2nd printing, 2007) p.217-218