The Comfort of Christmas

Well, let's dig into the verses that Katie just read for our advent reading this morning. But first, let me do a quick audience poll. How many of you feel that you are ready for Christmas? And let me get a little bit more specific. How many of you have your tree up? Show of hands. You've got your tree up. How many of you... the decorations in your house are pretty much done. You're done decorating. Good, good. How many of you... the cards are all sent. Your Christmas cards are done. The numbers are getting a little bit thinner here. How many of you... your gifts are bought. You're done buying gifts. Good. Wow. How many of you... your gifts are wrapped. Wow. How many of you have at least some cookies baked already? Really? How many of you have basically... you've already celebrated Christmas. You're on to St. Patrick's Day in your house. How many of you have done none of these things? Can I see a show of hands? These are my people right here.

Well, you know we talk about getting ready for Christmas, but of course one of the best and most important ways to get ready for Christmas is to get spiritually ready. And that's why we, along with churches all over the globe, do what Christians call Advent. And as Adrian kicked off the series last weekend, did a great job too. He explained that Advent means arrival. And when we talk about Advent at Christmas, it refers to two Advents of Jesus. The scripture talks about the first Advent in the past 2,000 years ago when the Messiah Jesus was born and the second Advent. "No more let sins and sorrows grow," or "thorns infest the ground," as we sang. When the Messiah Jesus returns and the whole idea of Advent is that all of us are waiting on the Lord for something in our lives.

And Advent is about learning how to live between the now and the not yet as we wait for the arrival of the Lord in some way in our lives and in the history of the world. And a lot of people are feeling this right now. We're feeling like we're living a little bit on pause, a little bit in a parentheses, a little bit in an in-between time. A little bit like something C.S. Lewis describes in the famous book "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." How many of you have read this book? Can I see a show of hands? Most of us here today, then you remember that in the book a little girl named Lucy enters through a magical wardrobe, the land of Narnia, where when she walks in it is winter.

And shortly she meets a character named Mr. Tumnus who explains the whole land is under the evil winter spell of the white witch. And here's how he explains it. "It is winter in Narnia," said Mr. Tumnus, "and has been forever so long, always winter but never Christmas." And I tell this story almost every Christmas season because I think that describes so well what people are feeling so often and what Advent is all about how to live when it feels like it's always winter but never Christmas. And there are so many people feeling like this right now. We've been waiting for COVID to be over and there's all kinds of false endings.

We've been waiting for the political division and fractiousness in our country to come to an end and for people to learn to get along and somehow things just seem to be getting worse. And maybe you personally in your life have been waiting for some healing, some physical healing, some emotional healing, some restoration of family relationships, but it just never seems to happen. Somebody told me the other day, "René, it feels like we're in some kind of permanent limbo. Like things are terrible and they won't ever get any better." How do you endure those times when that kind of despair settles in? Somebody told me yesterday morning, "René, I just feel emotionally cooked." How do you endure when you feel like you're living in the in-between times?

Well grab your message notes or download them if you're watching us online at TLC.org/notes. Shadow and Light is the name of our Advent series. We're looking at verses from the Bible that inspired Handel's Messiah and as Mark mentioned next weekend our choir together with the Monte Vista High School Choir is going to sing about eight songs from Handel's Messiah. It's gonna be fantastic. Invite your friends. We're gonna have an orchestra here. It's gonna be amazing.

Today we're looking at the verses that actually start Handel's Messiah. At the very beginning of every Messiah concert after the orchestra is tuned up the lights go down and the audience is hushed and the orchestra begins to play and then a soloist steps up and begins to sing the first notes. Comfort ye. Comfort ye my people says your God. Beautiful words from Isaiah 40:1 and then the choir goes on to sing more verses from this amazing one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible Isaiah 40. You're gonna hear it sung next weekend so let's look at the comfort of Christmas today. Anybody in need of comfort today? Let's look at Isaiah 40:1–12. My goal is that when you hear these verses sung next weekend it's gonna give you goosebumps after learning some of the background today.

Excuse me, but I hope more than that that you are comforted with these timeless ideas wherever you're feeling anxiety and stress today. Now before we plunge into Isaiah 40, I want to give you the historical context for this. There's a great story in Isaiah 39 that sets up the situation that Isaiah 40 was written toward. The year is 700 BC and King Hezekiah rules over the kingdom of Judah and everything looks bad but his kingdom survives a siege by the brutal Assyrian army and then he survives a fatal illness and then he becomes incredibly wealthy and so everything's gone from looking really terrible to looking super good.

He feels kind of bulletproof when some Babylonian diplomats appear on the horizon and ask to meet with him. Babylon is a rising superpower and Hezekiah figures maybe I can form an alliance with these guys against the Assyrians and so he decides to show off and he shows these Babylonians all of his treasures, all his gold, all his silver. He opens up the vaults and after they leave he tells his friend the preacher Isaiah, "You know I think that went pretty well." And Isaiah looks at him and says, "You moron." He says, "You know what you just did? You just showed an apex predator that you taste delicious." He said they don't want to be your allies; they look at you as their next meal.

And he says Babylon's gonna get stronger and stronger and stronger and in the next generation they'll be back and they're gonna take all the treasure they just saw and they're gonna destroy the city and they're gonna take all the Jewish people into captivity back to Babylon. And you know what Hezekiah's answer is? He says, "Did you say in the next generation?" And Isaiah says, "Yeah." And he goes, "At least I'll die pleasantly." And that's how the chapter ends, this unempathetic response from King Hezekiah, and fade to black. If this was a movie the orchestra would be playing a doom chord, you know, dun dun dun, and then fade up on Isaiah 40.

All the terrible things that Isaiah had prophesied are coming true. It's 150 years later, Jerusalem is in ruins because of Babylonian siege. The Jews are in the Babylonian captivity, dragged off in chains hundreds of miles away for 70 years, not only because of Hezekiah's blunder but also because they've been in rebellion against God and this is a punishment, a discipline for them. And so now they feel hopeless, stuck in limbo. Things are terrible and they're never gonna get any better. That's when Isaiah 40 unfolds with three sources of comfort that got them through that time and these same three truths can absolutely change the way you go through these in-between times that we find ourselves in right now. Are you ready for this? You can trust in these three things: first, God's perfect timing.

God's perfect timing. Verse two: "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, her sin has been paid for; she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Now if you read this uncarefully it sounds like they have paid for their sins through their suffering, but that's not a concept that's found in the Bible. In fact, later on in Isaiah 53, Isaiah says it's the Messiah who pays for our sins. What this is talking about is kind of like their prison sentence, their term of discipline, their punishment is now over. God's timing is perfect and it is now finished. God does not discipline forever. Isn't that good news? Even when I'm reaping the consequences of my own stupid moves as these people were, God still never gives up on me. God still loves me. God still has plans for me. God does not reject you. God does not keep you on the shelf forever.

God says, "I know you feel like you're in the desert but listen to the voice of one calling in the desert: here comes God. Prepare away for the Lord. Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain." Positive for just a second, anybody remember that old Motown song? "Ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough to keep me from getting to you, babe." Right? Well, that's kind of the idea here. God saying, "Ain't no valley low enough, ain't no mountain high enough to keep me from getting to you because I love you and your life is not over and the best is yet to come for you." This is a glorious, glorious message.

And he says, "And the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." He's saying, "I know it looks bleak but I spoke and so this is gonna happen. I know everything's against you but you guys are gonna go back to Jerusalem and your fortunes are gonna be reversed and everything's gonna be great." Now how did this actually happen for the first people who heard this? Well, a new king arose, King Cyrus. What happened was the Persians arose, took over Babylon, and King Cyrus is the new king. And you know what he says to the Jews? He says, "You know what? You all are now free from captivity and you can go back to Jerusalem and rebuild your temple and live your lives and worship your own God." It's so unexpected that you would almost suspect that it was made up by Bible authors, except we know the Bible's inspired and we have archaeological evidence of this decree in what's called the Cyrus cylinder.

There's copies of this that have been found by archaeologists throughout the world where in Persian writing King Darius says what the Bible says. He said, "You can go back to your own land and worship God." The people at the time, the Jewish people, saw this as absolutely a miracle of God. And this same occurrence has inspired people in all kinds of dire circumstances that God's timing is perfect, that the darkness you're going through is not a cave, a dead-end cave; it's a tunnel, it's going somewhere. And not just for those people. N.T. Wright is a Bible scholar at the University of Oxford and he's an expert really in expressing what it is that these texts are saying to us. And he says these verses are saying the time is up, the waiting is over, it's been sorted out, the new work is going forward.

It's not just that time will heal because often it doesn't. It's not just that we'll gradually forget the pain because quite likely we won't. It's not simply that things will settle down by themselves because often they don't. It's that one day God will make new heavens and new earth where the valleys will be filled in and the mountains flattened so that the Lord in his glory may return to dwell with us forever. Amen. And he says he allows us even in the present to anticipate that great event when in his good time—say that sentence out loud with me—in his good time, in answer to the spoken and unspoken prayer of how long, the Lord, he will bring us round the dark corner and into the light and will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Who's looking forward to that? I'm looking forward to that day.

You know, I was walking in the Seabright neighborhood yesterday and I saw a sign on a house that said, "Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, it's not the end." And you know, that's really a biblical sentiment. You can rest in the fact that God's timing is perfect and second, in God's perfect power. God's perfect power. Just settle down into this truth. Next verse in Isaiah 40: "A voice says, 'Cry out,' and I said, 'Well, what shall I cry?' That all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall." Now pause for just a second. What did this mean to the original hearers, these Jewish people who were in their 70-year Babylonian captivity? What was the glory of men that they saw around them?

Well, let me just show you an example. I had a chance to go to the British Museum and see the famous Ishtar gate of Babylon. This is one of the lone surviving gates of that great city of Babylon. This is not a reconstruction; this is the actual thing that existed when these chapters of Isaiah that we're looking at today were written. So that means the Jewish captives would have walked through this. This is one of the eight monumental gates in the city of Babylon and the people to whom this was written, they would have walked through this gate. Look at the size of the people. This is monumental even by modern standards. So this little part of Babylon survived; the rest of it is in ruins. Why? Because the grass withers and the flowers fall. He's saying sometimes it looks like evil is winning and death is winning and disease is winning, but it will not last. What will last? The Word of our God stands forever and that's good news.

And so he says, "You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring what? Good news, say it again, good news to Jerusalem. Lift up your voice with a shout." By the way, pause there for just a second. There's a lot of people who maybe don't come regularly to church and based on what they see in the media or what they hear in the movies and so on, they imagine that when they drive past buildings like ours all they're gonna hear when they walk inside these doors is words of condemnation, bad news. But the Bible says our message is the gospel, which means good news. Yes, in the Bible there are words of warning, there are words of correction, there are words of reality check, but the context for all those words is the good news that the Messiah is here with second chances for you, with a fresh start for you.

So he says lift that message up. Do not be afraid. Say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God." He says, "See, the sovereign Lord comes with power and he rules with a mighty arm, more mighty than that King that you're so afraid of. See, his reward is with him. No good deed that you've ever done is gonna go without reward and his recompense accompanies him." Recompense means payback, justice. It means the evil doers who are oppressing you, they will not get away with it because God's timing is perfect and God's power is perfect. Then I'm gonna skip over verse 11 for just a second because for the whole last half of chapter 40 of Isaiah, Isaiah goes on kind of a this preacher's riff or a rapper's riff, if you will, about the power of God.

And here's what he does very poetically. He goes over and over and over again. He takes awesome, amazing things that we're a little bit familiar with in our world and he says those things are mind-blowing all by themselves, but the power of God is even greater. For example, he starts in verse 12 with, "Who has measured the oceans in his hand?" Now just think for a second about the ocean. We're right here perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean here at Twin Lakes Church practically, right? It's just right across the freeway from us. There's a picture I took the other day standing on the bluffs in Capitola. Think of the Pacific Ocean. They say that you could go to all the continents on planet Earth and you could scrape off all the buildings and dump them in the Pacific Ocean and then you could scrape off all of the land that's above sea level on all the continents on the planet and dump all of that dirt into the Pacific Ocean and after you did all of that, you know what you would see peeking above the surface? Nothing. That's how deep and how vast are the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

And the Bible says God can hold all that in his hand. This is the vastness of the power of God. And then Isaiah goes even greater than that. He says, "Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?" The heavens here refers to the stars. I looked this up the other day. Somebody told me I read somewhere on a website that you could travel at light speed, try to reach the end of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and it would take you traveling at light speed a hundred thousand years just to reach the end of our galaxy. And how many galaxies are there in the universe? Roughly 200 billion. And to God, that's like something you measure between your thumb and your forefinger.

And there's something super comforting about just sort of sitting in that reality that our God is that able. Martin Luther King Jr. preached about this a lot. This is really where he found strength for his struggle. And in a sermon I found the other day before the start of the new year, he preached this as a New Year's sermon to his church in 1956 and he said, talking about the text that we're looking at today, "There is no better way to begin this year than with the conviction that there is a God of power who is able to do exceeding abundant things in the life of the universe and in our lives. The conviction that our God is able." Can you just say that word out loud for me right now? "Our God is able." Say that again. "Our God is able." No, say it with conviction. Shout it out. "Our God is able." He says that's a conviction stressed and exalted in over and over again in both the New and Old Testaments. This conviction stands at the center of our Christian faith.

When we notice the vastness of the cosmic order, we must cry out, "What? Our God is able!" The God that we worship is not a weak God. He is not an incompetent God. He is able to beat back gigantic mountains of opposition and to bring low hilltops of evil. Yes, there are times, he said, that I get despondent and wonder if it is worth it, but then something says to me deep down within, say it, "God is able." So you need not worry. What is it that you're going through? What's your in-between time? What's the advent, the relief that you so fervently desire? God comforts you by reminding you of his perfect timing, his perfect power, but then the best is saved for last: God's perfect love.

God's perfect love. I love this. Having talked about this God of power, Isaiah then says, "And he, this God of power, tends his flock like a what? A shepherd. He gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them close to his heart, and he gently leads those that have young." You know, and I was studying this verse this week I kept getting super emotional because we ourselves are waiting for the advent of a couple of Christmas children. Our first anticipated granddaughter is due any moment. Our daughter-in-law Anna is due right now, and so we're just kind of waiting for that text. You know, the other day at Thursday we had a pastor meeting at church and my phone beeped twice and I looked and it was David and I got so excited. He's texting me, he's texting me, and I flipped open my phone and it said, "Dad, Dad, the Criterion Channel just added 21 Hitchcock movies." And I'm like, come on! But he knows I love Hitchcock, I guess. And then we're anticipating a second granddaughter. You know what her due date is? Christmas Day. So we're pretty excited about this and it's gotten me very emotional thinking about our own children and how we held them close when they were babies and now they're having babies. All three of our kids are having babies this year.

Here's a baby that was born earlier this year. This is our daughter Elizabeth with her son Emmett who was born in January, cuddling Emmett like that. That's the best part of her day. And you know when it says God holds you close to his heart, that means you're the best part of God's day. That's how much that God of power loves you. Here's a picture of Elizabeth's husband Jordan when Emmett was just a newborn literally holding him close to his heart. And this first means that's how the God who spun the stars into existence feels about you. And that relationship is the reason for Christmas. You know Jesus said, "You know that good shepherd that Isaiah talked about? Well, I'm the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." And as we'll remember in a few moments in communion, that's what Jesus did for us to forgive us of all of our sins and to hold us close to his heart.

I've told you about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an amazing man, a pastor in Germany during World War II, famous writer imprisoned by the Nazis because he was part of a plot to overthrow Hitler. And he was actually in prison over Christmas. And so get this: Bonhoeffer wrote letters to his fiancée with thoughts about Advent from a Nazi prison. Imagine! And look at what he says: "We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God's coming should arouse in us, that the God of the universe draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us." And yet even in a Nazi prison he knew he was on death row. He knew he would not survive his imprisonment, but this thought comforted him. He said, "When everything is bearing down on us so much we can barely stand it, do you feel like that sometimes? The Christmas message comes to us and tells us that our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is still in the manger. He is right here and no matter what men try, they cannot circumvent God who is secretly revealed as Lord and rules the world and our lives." That is exactly the message of Isaiah 40 to the exiles. You'll hear it sung next weekend. I'm so excited about that.

But do you feel imprisoned, exiled, on pause, stuck in limbo forever? Remember and take comfort in God's perfect timing, God's perfect power, God's perfect love, and a perfect demonstration of all this: the incarnation of Jesus, which was God shouting the good news to a waiting world. I know it feels like winter will never end, but Christmas is coming. Let's pray. Would you bow your heads with me? Heavenly Father, help us remember when we feel that we're in limbo that your timing is perfect, even when it seems to be taking so long, that your power is perfect and will outlast all frustration, that your love is perfect, that you long to hold us close to your heart. And God, I pray that right now there would be people who say, "I want to receive that. I don't fully understand it, but I need the light of Christ for my darkness," maybe for the very first time or maybe you've been a Christian for four years and years but you've just gotten so discouraged because you feel like you're just in this never-ending limbo. Lord, help me to take comfort in these truths. And Lord, I pray for all of the advent events that people would know your love because of what happens through TLC this month. And we pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.