ISAIAH’S CHRISTMAS

We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a joyous Christmas season. What extraordinary times! Just as we emerged from the world-wide pandemic, another crisis exploded when Russia invaded Ukraine, in a grinding tragedy that moves us to tears. To keep our heads clear, we must cry out to the God over the nations—and declare Jesus Christ to the nations. Let the prophet Isaiah teach us how. [1]

The Lord certainly puts the nations in their place: all of them together are like a single drop of water. The continents are mere specks of dust that a merchant blows off his scales. And yet, though God views organized humanity as infinitesimal in size, we are not insignificant to him.

Grasp the Temple imagery here. The bleak assessment “not sufficient” foreshadows the world’s only hope: If you gathered all the animals and all the wood of Lebanon and consumed them on the altar, even such a massive burnt offering would never be enough. Sinners need a far greater redemption. And the Lord himself will provide it!

This human baby—with titles fitting only for God himself—is the Suffering Servant who would become the final sacrifice to rescue his people from sin and death. These events which Isaiah viewed from afar, we know from history.

Jesus saves! That’s not a tired cliché on billboards with peeling paint. It’s a fact! Believe it. Trust him.[2] Proclaim him. Christians experience Christ’s real presence with them, and engage our culture, and live in the present. Yet our home is elsewhere, and the ultimate fulfillment of our hope is future.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[1] Scripture quotes are from the New International Version.

[2] To learn more about what this means, see Resources, Downloads, “The Greatest News.”