Word of Salvation – Vol. 27 No. 09 – December 1981

 

A Child Born… Unto Us!

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf, B.D. on Isaiah 9:6

Scripture Reading: Luke 2:1-7; Isaiah 9:1-6

Psalter Hymnal: Nos. 327; 337; 336

 

The beginning of Isaiah 9 typically comes from the Middle East: you smell the gunpowder and the cordite all over the place. There is the noise of war in the breaking of yokes, the snapping up of sticks and rods. We see the flames and the thick black smoke when the booty of war machinery is burned up, boots of tyrant soldiers blazing away and cloaks and uniforms drenched in blood. We hear of the day of Midian, and that of course is the day Midian was dealt with.

It was one of those incredible Israeli victories where Gideon with His 300 guerrillas made short shrift of 10,000 camel-mounted tyrants. We hear the shouts of victory as when ‘the loot and the spoils are divided!’ “Victory, victory!!” And I imagine that every down-pressed and persecuted Jew throughout the ages must have read this passage with glittering eyes: the great vision of Messiah riding to conquest! Liberating His land! Coming in splendour at the head of His victorious troops…!

And then there is suddenly that anti-climax: then we hear of… the birth of a child! And as we read already in the words from Paul even when that child will grow up it will remain an anti- climax. Judas discovered that, and He betrayed this messiah. He didn’t want a bar of it. He expected a hero but look what a lamb! Yes, Paul also had to go through much, before He could get 1Corinthians 1 out of his Jewish-pharisee partisan pen! “Foolishness with men… but that is wisdom,with God!?

“What men call weakness, a crucified “Messiah”. That God has chosen to shame the strong. Not by what the world calls power, not through what the world calls might… says God….! A child is born, a small human son is given. Is that all?

Oh sure, the government shall be upon His shoulder, but His crown will appear to be a crown of thorns! And His name shall be called: “WONDERFUL” – You know, nobody ever will say that to Jesus who reckons He can make it Himself. No-one will call Him “wonderful” who somehow finds himself wonderful. But I tell you who have called His name “wonderful”. That is a paralysed man who was lowered on his bed at his feet and he looked at him and said: I know what is wrong with you, let’s do something about THAT – first your sins are forgiven. Gone! Now let’s do something about your body: I tell you: get up and walk. And life started all over, brand new. That fellow called Jesus’ name wonderful.

Or take the man Bartimaeus, blind and helpless, crying out in his need and being told off by the tourists on the road. But then there is that unforgettable voice asking him: What do you want me to do for you? And then he opens his eyes and along with a whole incredible world – long lost world of colour and beauty and life there is before him that face looking at him so full of love. Bartimaeus is back into life again and would he not call His Name “Wonderful”?

The sisters of Lazarus see their brother walk out of that terrible tomb alive! He who was dead was alive, and to them He is forever “Wonderful!”

Oh if you have come to see what Jesus came to do, bringing lost sinners back to God and dead people back to life, then you will call him that great name “Wonderful”.

And when we sing that later on, should there not be a few false notes when the choir sings that name: “Wonderful!” – you cannot quite sing it without tears and a lump coming into your throat?

This is one chorus that almost sounds suspect when it sounds too perfect: My Lord! My Lord! My redeemer! His name shall be called “Wonderful!”

But His name shall also be called Counsellor. That’ s a name our young people know well. Our cadets and our calvinettes call the leaders counsellors. For these young teenagers need counsellors, for they are there to help them find the way. In a confusing world in which so much can go wrong, it is no easy task to be a counsellor. But God has not left us in the warren and confusion of our own sin and guilt. God sent a counsellor to show us the way out…. To be that way.

That is why Paul can say: we are often in need of counsel but never more in despair. In that need there is a provision. There is a counsellor, not only to point us to the way to heaven but to guide us into life and through life.

Because Jesus is counsellor we now can have Christian schools.

Because Jesus is counsellor, we have a word of God shining as a light on our path, – every path!

Because He is counsellor there is such a thing as Christian joy in marriage and wisdom in bringing up children.

There is a Christian approach to science, and Christian ways of making music – like we’re doing here tonight. God puts a hesitating little convalescent (That’s what a redeemed sinner is right?) he is a convalescent who learns to walk again and to hear the voice of his healer counselling him: “That-a-way my friend, yes! You’ll make it!”

Counsellor – and His name shall be called “THE MIGHTY GOD!” And then the wraps are off completely. So that’s who He really is, that child. He is the Son of man, He is fully human. Yet he is not like so many would-be saviours who have arisen from Confucius and Buddha on up and right down to Marx, Mao Tze Tung and Che Quevara…! No, man cannot eliminate death. Man cannot make a new world without making new hearts. Only one can do that: He is the mighty God! Come, says God – Let me…! He is not another one having a hopeful try, but the mighty God starting a work that in His time will sure be finished. Will anything ever be impossible to Him????? …The mighty God… and His name shall be called: “The Everlasting Father…!”

Yes, and if you now read your bible always through the glasses of your theology and your dogmatics, you have a puzzle on your hands. For how can the son be the father? The Son is not the same as the Father, is He? Well, but He said: He who has seen me has seen the Father!

And He also said: through Me you can come to the Father!

When you have come here from Holland many, many years ago, and at last… at last you can fly back and see your loved ones overseas again…. You step into the plane that will bring you there, and it is a Dutch plane. When you sit down there is inside you the warm glow: In a way I am in Holland already. That plane that will get me there to Holland. The son who brings me to the Father of eternity is the Father for me. He is the one who teaches me to say that name: “Daddy” to God.

He tells the lost wanderers and the stray pilgrims: “Now when you pray, say: ‘Our Father who art in heaven’… You’re no more an orphan. I – who became an outcast when bearing the burden of your guilt, I am for you the way to the father!!

Wonderful! Counsellor! The mighty God! The everlasting Father! And then there is the climax of His names: “THE PRINCE OF PEACE!”

In Hebrew that is Sar Shalom, “The great One …of Peace!” Now that word Shalom for the Israelite always means more that the absence of war.

Mind you, in a part of the world where it always smells of gunpowder, cordite and burned flesh, that – the absence of war is vital enough. You only have to have lived through a long war and have seen what that does to all of life. War affects family, love and marriage, the economy, the arts, science and idealism, and you know that peace really will affect all of that, too!

The bringer of peace is then the bringer back of joy to all of life! Yes, and that is the biblical idea of what Jesus came to do. He is not just the bringer of a step-ladder to get you into heaven when you’re old and stiff with arthritis. He is the bringer of peace… now. And peace in God’s book is linked up with justice, with mercy, with the flowering of all of life. It is for the glory of God and the restoration of God’s creation here. It is also the bridging of the gap into a life that will never end… there. When the one Christian greets the other with “Shalom”, he does that because in Christ all of God’s world will live again.. He is the peace maker.

First God seals that peace by the blood of the cross – wiping out our guilt forever. Then by rising from the dead, Christ became the first one, whom we shall follow on that incredible road. …——Prince of peace!

Yes, and now there is one little thing, one little expression from our text which I haven’t spoken about yet, and without which the whole thing still would be meaningless. AND THAT IS THE WORD: “UNTO US”. We think of the way that word is quoted by the angel in Bethlehem’s field: Not just did He say: Born today is a saviour … but unto you is born this day a saviour. You know, if you do not receive this child, if you do not embrace him in faith – even if the kind of faith that cries out to God: “Lord I believe, help my unbelief!” then this wonderful fact we sing about today has no meaning for you. And you will miss out on God’s peace.

It is not enough to think of yourself as a person having some goodwill. It is not sufficient to class yourself as benevolent, a bloke who never did anybody any harm. It is not enough to claim “The spirit of Christmas” (whatever that is), or that your neighbours like you. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then you will be saved!

Join the chorus of those who have discovered: a child was born…. unto me! God has given His only son… to me! And how necessary it was! I was dead, but now I am alive. I was hateful but now I love, I truly call His name: Wonderful!!

He took upon Himself my diseases, and by His stripes I am healed. He took away from me all fear, He is the mighty God, the counsellor who has pointed me to God the Father! He guides my step even through the valleys of the shadows. Unto me He was born. The mighty God overcame the evil one, and makes me free!

I am free to serve. I may call God Father because of Him. He was made peace for me whether I always feel it or not. Justified as I am by faith I HAVE PEACE WITH GOD.

Then Prince as He is; He uses me as an instrument of His peace. He sends me as ambassador to family, church, world and culture, to pass on this good news. You know: without that “unto us” Christmas would be a tinsel fairy-tale. But with the “Unto us” we are all drawn in.

It becomes a feast that’ll last throughout life. Yes, that will never end in all eternity.

Amen.