Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Sermon for Sunday, December 6

Isaiah 40:1-11

How do we wait for Christmas? There is something about the Christmas season, I think, that makes us kids again. We mark the time on our calendars a little more closely, we hustle and we bustle to buy just the right gifts for all of the people who matter the most to us. We try to take time to reflect on the meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. We also love to spend time with family, reconnecting and sending cards and making phone calls. We circle the 25th on our calendar, and we try to carve out times for the gifts of this season. Katie and I have been taking advantage of having more evenings at home this year by lighting our advent wreath and concluding dinner time with a short devotional reading and a song. But mostly, we wait.

When you are a kid, waiting for Christmas is excruciating. I think that’s why in my house growing up there were always a Christmas movie on the tv. I was always singing “Silver Bells” even though I’d never heard the song outside of a commercial. And my sister and I would try to stay up all night on Christmas Eve to hear Santa Claus on the roof. One year I fell asleep waiting in a bad position and spent Christmas with a stiff neck that I couldn’t even turn to one side.

But above all I remember “Joy to the World.” That was my favorite Christmas Carol. Sure, I got some of the words wrong: “Let earth see Burger King.” But the expectation, the waiting, the promise of Joy. That’s what this season is for. Now that I’m older, I know that waiting for Christmas is just preparation for all the other things we have to wait for in life. We wait for opportunities, we wait for our spouses, after we get married, we wait for our spouses some more. But what we wait for most of all is the return of Christ, to judge the quick and the dead, to set all things right, to establish His Kingdom.  There are so many things in this world that shouldn’t be. Things that won’t be there in Christ’s Kingdom. And every year at Christmas, we are reminded that Christ has come and will come again. And we are reminded that Christmas comes with joy. And our joy gives us comfort as we wait.

We have joy in our shared vocation: preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The prophet says “Get you up to a high mountain... lift up your voice with strength... say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’” (v. 9). We are here this morning as a people who know where God is. More importantly we know who God is. It’s our job to tell people about Jesus. 

In the Unterlinden Museum in Alsace, France there is an altarpiece. Displayed on the front is the scene of the Crucifixion, masterfully painted by Matthias Grunewald early in the sixteenth century. The painting shows Jesus at the center, on the cross, emaciated and writhing in pain, his body covered in sores. On the left, three onlookers are presented: Mary the Mother of Jesus collapsing into the arms of John the beloved disciple, and another woman (perhaps Mary Magdalene) on her knees at the foot of the cross, pleading. On the right side of the painting is the lone figure of John the Baptist, holding a Bible and standing with a lamb. I should remind you that this is anachronism; John the Baptist was long dead by the time Christ was crucified. What draws your eye in the image is the finger of John the Baptist, pointing unambiguously to the crucified Jesus, and above his hand the words, in Latin from John 3:30: “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

Pointing to Jesus is our main job. Once when I was a child my dad and I came across a couple of guys bird hunting, and as they were talking, one of the dogs started pointing... at me. I’ll never forget it, that’s the first time I’d ever seen a dog point before, and the way the dog just turned his body into an arrow demonstrated a focus I have seldom seen. How committed are we to pointing to Christ at every opportunity? Whatever we do, that’s our chief vocation and calling as Christians. When we do that, we experience the joy of doing what we were created to do. And we get to talk about the wonder that is coming.

We have joy in our reward: eternity in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. The prophet says, “See, the Lord God comes with might ... his reward is with him and his recompense before him” (v. 10). Both of these words, reward and recompense, refer to the wages a person receives for work that has been completed. There are few things more satisfying than receiving a check when your work is done. As Christians, we are awaiting the wages that are ours in Christ at his return. The work he accomplished on our behalf, and the work that he does through us, have set aside a great reward for us. We know and believe that Jesus is coming to restore this world to what it should be, and we look and long for that restoration.

It’s no wonder Jesus talks about his return as a wedding. Ten years ago this month, I was finishing my first semester of seminary, and waiting for my wedding day. Katie and I got married on December 31, 2010. The days and weeks leading up to that wedding were filled with excitement and excruciating waiting. For the last week before our wedding we were together. Katie slept in the front room of her Pops’s house, and I slept with her brother in the loft-apartment in the barn. Every night that week, between 3 and 4 am, I crept into the house and sat alone by the fireplace in the living room, unable to sleep, wondering what my life would be like after the wedding. I couldn’t understand what that was going to look like, and every day and year has been a surprise. That’s what waiting for Jesus is like. We do not know what heaven will look like, or what that experience will be. But we know that it will be good. We can have joy in that knowledge: that the coming King Jesus is bringing with him our salvation.

We have joy in following Jesus: we have a shepherd who walks before us and leads the way. The prophet says, “He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep” (v. 11). We can have joy when we trust that Jesus knows where he is leading us. Have you ever seen cattle released onto green pasture for the first time in the Spring? You haven’t seen joy until you’ve seen a 1200 pound animal skip excitedly across a field of green grass. And all the farmer has to do is call them. They come to gate and hit the new grass at a run. They seem to say to each other: “No more dry and boring hay! It’s time for GRASS! Beaaaautiful beaaautiful GRASS!” How amazing! How wonderful!

We can only have joy in following Jesus if we are willing to trust him to lead us. The way that Jesus calls us to follow is the way of the cross. I’ve been reading a book recently by a pastor named Brian Zahnd, it’s called Radical Forgiveness. In that book, Brian Zahnd makes the point that when Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him, he’s not telling us to believe certain things about Jesus and the cross. He’s telling us to do what he did on the cross. On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Are we prepared to take up our cross if that means forgiving our enemies and our friends? If we do, we will see the joy that comes from following the good shepherd. The green pastures he causes us to lie down on are pastures of grace and forgiveness.

We are coming to the end of another year; it is a year like no other that we have seen. We find ourselves waiting on things that are beyond our control. We do not know when numbers will go down. We do not know when this pandemic will be over, but we do know— we can know with certainty, that the end of this is coming. Whether it is because we finally ride this thing out, or if it’s because Jesus returns to set the world right, we know that the end will come.