Advent 4A
2019
Rev.
Adam T. Trambley
December
22, 2019, St. John’s Sharon
This morning’s readings challenge us
With
the great hope of believing
In Immanuel, that God-is-with-us.
The situations of Ahaz in our first reading
And
Joseph in our Gospel reading
Are
very different.
But both are intense, consuming,
And
require either
one-hundred
percent faith and commitment
That
God is present right where they are,
Or
the acknowledgment
that
this present life is too much
and that
God is powerless or absent
In the first reading from Isaiah,
Ahaz
is the King of Jerusalem,
A
descendant of David,
And
one who should be
Carrying
forward God’s covenant with his people.
Ahaz is inspecting his city’s vulnerable water
supply,
Fretting
in fear
over the advancing forces of two enemy kings.
Isaiah, directed by God, shows up
And
reassures him that his foes are nothing.
God
is present for his people
And
is waiting to save.
Right before the verses we read this morning,
Isaiah
challenges Ahaz to,
“Stand
firm in your faith or you will not stand at all.”
Standing firm in God offers salvation and
deliverance.
Ignoring
God
Is to walk away from all the
protects and defends us.
Ahaz
cannot lead God’s people without faith in God.
Then God, through Isaiah,
Tells
Ahaz to ask for a sign --
Anything
Ahaz can imagine
To
reassure him that God is present with him.
God wants to do something extravagant to
reassure Ahaz.
God
knows being a King is tough,
That
Ahaz feels the weight of defending the people
He
cares about and who trust him.
God
wants to save his people AND
To
be present to Ahaz.
Ahaz rejects the offer.
He
says he doesn’t want to put God to the test.
But what Isaiah makes clear is
That
he doesn’t ask
Because
he doesn’t believe God can deliver.
He believes that at this most important time
In
his reign and his life
God
has no power to do anything that matters.
The results of Ahaz’s rejection
Demonstrate
BOTH
The
utter devastation of relying on human power
AND
God’s unfailing intention to reach out and save
Isaiah pronounces God’s sign for Ahaz:
A
young maiden will bear a son
And
that son will be named
Immanuel,
God-with-us.
Before
this child grows up,
Ahaz
will see that God is with us
In
what happens to the two kings
That
Ahaz fears.
Ahaz
will see God’s victory,
And
that victory will not take very long.
There are a couple of other points to be made
here.
First is this whole business of prophetic signs
And
naming children.
In Israel, one of the ways prophets proved
their point
Was
by naming children with a prophecy name.
That
child’s name was a reminder of what they predicted
And
since everyone called that child the name,
You
couldn’t change your prophecy later.
So
a child being called, “God-is-with-us”
In
relation to this prophecy to Ahaz
Meant
that by the time the kid grew up,
Everyone
would know that either
God
had been with us or not.
No
wiggle room was left.
In Isaiah and Ahaz’s day,
There
may well have been a child named
Immanuel
To
remind everyone of Isaiah’s prophecy
That God,
who is with us,
And
not Ahaz himself,
saved Jerusalem from these two kings.
Second, we also know that this story continues
forward,
Both
with ancient Israel and as a prophecy for Jesus.
In today’s reading we hear about the child
Immanuel
Eating
curds and honey.
In the rest of this chapter and the next
Isaiah
talks more about what eating curds and honey means.
The problem comes down to Ahaz’s faithlessness,
As
well as the faithlessness of the people generally.
Ahaz choice not to stand firm in God,
Means
that eventually he and his regime
Will
not stand.
God
will defeat this threat,
But
other difficulties will come.
Eventually, the advanced economy and
civilization
Surrounding
the capital of Jerusalem will be lost,
And
farmland will again be overtaken
By
brambles and weeds.
There will be no more well-prepared foods from
fancy shops,
or
even from cultivated orchards and vineyards.
What will be available is milk and honey.
These are more primarily wild foods.
A
hunter-gather family may have a cow or goat for milk,
And
come across honey-filled bee hives in the wild.
Isaiah’s prophecy later in the chapter makes
clear
That
because of a lack of faith in God
The
curds and honey are all the food that will be available.
Scary
stuff.
But Isaiah also makes clear
That
because of God’s goodness,
Because
God is Immanuel, God is with us,
That
food is all that will be necessary.
The milk and honey will be in abundance,
And
overflow,
And
provide for everything that is needed.
Due to human disobedience and faithlessness,
Including
the faithlessness of their leaders,
Life
will be difficult.
But
in the midst of that difficult,
Seemingly
impossible life
When
all that is familiar is turned upside down,
God
still has a plan
For
the flourishing of his people
God
is still with us
God
is still caring for us.
Part of the fulfillment of this Immanuel
prophecy of Isaiah,
Points
forward beyond the immediate context
Of
Ahaz and ancient Israel.
Isaiah’s prophetic proclamation of God’s
character
Points
forward to an even fuller incarnation
Of
Immanuel, God-is-with-us.
Early Christians instinctively understood
That
when Isaiah instructed Ahaz
He
was speaking also about another child
To
be born of a young maiden
Hundreds
of years in the future.
That child, called Immanuel,
Would
embody the eternal connection
Between
heaven and earth
And
restore faithless humanity
To
a fulness of life with God.
That child Immanuel is at the center of our
Gospel this morning.
This story’s narrative is more familiar to us.
The angel Gabriel from heaven
Came
to Mary to announce that she would bear a child.
This
child Jesus would be the Son of God
And
have the throne of his ancestor David.
(You
can see we are moving on from faithless Ahaz,
To
Jesus’ faithful parents.)
This unplanned pregnancy caused some
consternation
To
Mary’s betrothed.
So in today’s gospel we hear that an angel
Comes
to Joseph in a dream
And
tells him to take Mary as his wife.
Mary’s
child is the Son of God,
Who
is Immanuel
And
will save God’s people from their sins.
Joseph now has the same question set before him
that Ahaz had.
Does
he trust God or not?
Does
he believe that God can be present with him
In
the midst of what is going to be
a
difficult domestic situation?
He has heard from an angel in a dream,
But
we all have interesting dreams sometimes.
Joseph
could easily have discounted it and moved on.
Break
the engagement, find a new wife,
And
feel morally superior in the process.
But he didn’t.
Joseph did exactly what God asked him to do.
He
trusted that God would be with him
Amid
his fears and doubts and challenging choices.
He
believed that the Son would come,
And
he would be Immanuel
And
that God would be with him.
These challenging readings should be great
comfort for us
As
we struggle to be faithful in our difficulties
And
to have hope in what can be very trying times.
Many of us face person struggles this
Christmas.
The
holidays often highlight family tensions and fights.
The
glitz and glam of the perfect Christmas may prove
A
pretty stark contrast from what we can really afford.
The
blue Christmas brought on by the loss of loved ones
Can
cause acute loneliness and depression.
There
are as many ways for us to feel like
Joy,
peace, and love are failing us,
Or
we are failing them,
As
there are people struggling to celebrate the season.
We are all told, with Joseph,
That
God is with us.
We are not promised that our problems will
disappear
Or
that we will be magically painted
Into
a Currier and Ives collectable plate.
Instead, we are promised that Jesus will be
born again into our lives.
We are promised that we are important to God
And that God is paying attention
to our struggles and challenges,
that God loves us,
and that God will never leave us.
We are promised that
Even
when what we are going through
Is
too much for us,
It
is not too much for God.
We are reminded in our first reading that the
big picture
Is
also in God’s hand.
Ahaz is not the only powerful public figure
Whose
faithfulness to God plan and promise
Could
be reasonably called into question.
We might be worried, justifiably,
About
what kind of world
It
looks like we are leaving
For
our children and grandchildren.
To go back to a place
Where
the only food is milk and honey
Would
be pretty unlikely.
Yet, even there, God is with us.
If we look to God,
He
will be with us
regardless
of what happens.
Just as he has been with people throughout
history
In
plagues, famines, wars, droughts,
And
any number of unspeakable disasters.
Jesus is the best companion in a Zombie
Apocalypse,
As
well as any circumstance not quite at that level,
And
he is going to show up for us.
Immanuel. God-is-with-us.
Stand
firm in our faith
And
he will stand with us through anything and everything.
Christmas is the time that God fulfilled his
promise
That
he would be with us always.
Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God-is-with-us.
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