ISAIAH 9:1-7 There's a New Day Coming...

Rev. Dr. Paul A. Lance, Pastor
Los Altos United Church of Christ
5550 Atherton Street, Long Beach, California  90815

January 9, 2011

     In what was then a war-torn and godforsaken place called “The Galilee,” Isaiah said that God was preparing to embark on a new approach (making a fresh start) cutting a brand new way through the wilderness.  Next Sunday we will hear the clarion call of that new way, when Isaiah says: “Prepare ye the Way of the Lord; make straight a highway for our God…”  It is the promised new path out of wilderness and into a new society that is depicted on today’s bulletin cover: “Unfolding… possibilities…” 

   “Something’s coming, I don’t know what it is, but it is gonna be great!”  That’s a song from West Side Story, but it captures something of Isaiah’s hopeful projection: There’s a New Day dawning… “The air is humming, for something new is coming!”  We heard a hint of this glowing promise in last Sunday’s text, when Isaiah described “the New Creation” that God was beginning to create… to be a delight & a rejoicing, an era of longevity & good health, prosperity & peace, where “no more shall the sound of weeping be heard.”  That’ll be the day!

    But it wasn’t the present situation by a long shot.  The people of Northern Israel (which Isaiah refers to as lands of Zebulun & Naphtali) – the Israelites in Galilee & Samaria – were stumbling around in grief and abject poverty, for they had been openly defeated and publicly humiliated by their Assyrian conquerors.  Isaiah is speaking to people who, in their shame and despair, seek only darkness  -- who hide in their pain, avoiding the light -- to them, says Isaiah, a new dawn is coming…  A healing light, a liberating light, God’s light is coming...  says Isaiah.  A deliverer will be born to them.  Hang in there; hang on; have hope; trust God!

    The word translated “Deliverer” (Yeshua, in Hebrew) is transliterated in the Old Testament as “Joshua” but the very same word in the New Testament (Yeshua) is “Jesus.”  The name “Jesus” means “Deliverer.”  The Jews saw in their Biblical character “Joshua” the quintessential “Deliverer-Savior” of the people, for it was Joshua who had conquered the tribes of Canaan (after the passing of Moses) and who settled the refugee Hebrew slaves from Egypt in the “Promised Land.”  Now, in their time of national disintegration, Isaiah promises the forlorn, war-torn remnant in Galilee that a new “Yehsua” (a new Joshua, a new Jesus) would arise in their midst like the dawning of a new day.
But Isaiah says this promised “Deliverer” will be called many other names as well: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He will start small, baby-size, but his authority will grow continually, until there shall be endless peace; established by justice and up-held by righteousness.  The zeal of the Lord will do this.  (This text was frequently read in Jewish worship.)

    Ever since these promises were made by Isaiah (some 2,500 years ago), the Jewish world expected their Messiah (their Savior) to enter with a blaze of glory -- like a brilliant floodlight, blinding the powers of evil -- driving the demons of defeat and despair off the stage!!  They took what Isaiah called “the zeal” of the Lord to mean “the sword” of the Lord.  They understood the “Lord of Hosts” (the “El Shaddai, the Almighty God”) to mean the commander of the armies of heaven.  The “heavenly host” (literally, the “army of angels”) that the messianic Jews of Jesus’ day were anticipating was not the “choir of heavenly hosts” that is depicted on our Christmas cards, but a shock-&-awe-type of invasion from heaven (fighting on the side of good, of course)!  Yeshua (the long-awaited Deliverer) would be their commander.

    The Joshua-like “Deliverer/Messiah” that Israel began looking for, during those 500 years between Isaiah’s words and the time of Jesus, was something like a divine “Master of the Universe” coming down from the clouds (like horsemen on chariots) to wreck and to ruin the kingdoms of the earth (what Isaiah refers to in today’s text as “the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood”).   But what we discover in the Gospel story of Jesus is a Messiah who comes in the form of an infant, not a general!   If this little one, this baby Yeshua, is the promised light... what’s come iss no blaze of brilliance. It’s a mere pin-prick of light in the deep darkness of night.

      From the imagery of the prophets & the Psalms, we are led to assume that the coming of the Anointed One, the Messiah-Christ, would be something big...

    The Coming of the Christ should have been a spectacle writ large across the sky for all to see and none to miss -- an event that would stop traffic on the Interstate, make us leap from our beds like the shuddering of an earthquake.  Of course, some folks in some churches are still waiting for that kind of a Messiah: a dramatic, powerful, unmistakable, “apocalyptic” event on earth!

    In contrast to those expectations (as I read my Bible), Jesus’ birth went largely unnoticed.  There were no lightning bolts and thunder.  No blinding flash of power.  No violence; no political chaos.  (Nothing like the “Left Behind” series would lead us to believe.)  The Messiah entered the world “beneath the radar,” so to speak. 

   And it’s not like folks were not looking!  Think back to Luke’s Gospel: he sets the geo-political stage for us very well:  “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first census and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.”  [I can’t help but think back six or eight years ago, when a similar process went on in post-Saddam Iraq, as Kurds & Sunnis & Shiites, Bagdhadians & Fallujians, and all the rest of those 25 million people registered for the first time to vote on a new Iraqi government.  How quickly we forget how “moving” a moment that was in world history.]  Luke went on to say: “Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the City of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.  He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged, and who was expecting a child.”                 (Luke 2:1-5)

    Luke lets us know in no uncertain terms who has the power and how their society is organized: namely, from the top down!  At the top, the Emperor presided over “all the world.”  The Roman Senate had voted that Octavius (Caesar Augustus) was himself a divinity, a son of a god. So, with that sense of divine mandate, Caesar set the terms for his underlings.  “A decree went out...”

    Below the Emperor were the Regional “governors” -- namely, Quirinius, who ruled the Roman province of Syria.  Now, this is the same Syria as we have on our Middle Eastern maps today, with its same ancient capital “Damascus.” Then (as now) Syria was on the front line of the Empire’s eastward expansion into Persia -- modern-day Iraq & Iran.  Roman soldiers patrolled the Levant, as peace-keepers and occupation troops.  Quirinius was their commander-in-chief, like our Norman Schwartzkopf was in the First Gulf War or Gen. Tommy Franks later.  If there was about to be (as many Jews believed) a clash between the heavenly warriors of the soon-coming “Lord of hosts” and the Roman Legion-aires who occupied Palestine, Quirinius and his troops would be the Messiah’s ultimate adversary.

    From the Emperor at the top, to the Governor of the whole region, then on to the rulers of the five counties that made up the state of Israel in Jesus’ day. In the North: Galilee & Trachonitis, in the Middle: Samaria, and to the South: Judea and Perea.  Within each of those five “counties” were the “cities.”  Nazareth was a village in the Galilee.  Bethlehem was a village in Judea.  Neither one was a regional capitol (like Sepphoris, Tiberias, or Jerusalem).

    By the time we meet Joseph, Jesus’ father in the Gospels, we’re pretty far down on the pecking order of political importance.

    The first glimpse Luke gives us of this New testament Joseph is when he hit the road... leaving his hometown in the Galilee, to be registered in Judea instead.  It looks, at first, as if Joseph is responding to Caesar’s decree...  getting himself registered.  Except that the census was intended to show the Romans who the local people were (like a national ID registry), and to show where they lived... and, perhaps, indicate something about what they did (like a green card or Social Security number or IRS tax record does for us Americans).

    But when you think about the Christmas story more carefully, you’ll notice that Joseph leaves Nazareth in Galilee (& his carpentry trade) to be counted as a Judean instead, in a shepherd village.  The census will not accurately reflect who he is, what he does, nor where he lives!  In fact, the whole census will be way off if many others do the same -- they’ll show up as undocumented, unemployed, giving a false address.  To make matters worse, Joseph bring Mary along (and she’s pregnant!) so that her baby will be born in Bethlehem.  (Jesus will be a Bethlehem “anchor baby,” securing the family status as Judean, descended from King David.)   I’ve heard some folks complain that too many pregnant women come up from Mexico & Central & South America to have their babies here in California, thus gaining U. S. citizenship for the child.  (I wonder what they think about Mary doing that very same thing for Jesus?)

    The significance of Joseph’s low status and Jesus’ humble birth -- born in a barn, you know (which is a precursor to Jesus’ whole life spent without a home address, always near the poverty level) -- stands in stark contrast to the images people like to hold of “divinity” -- God as Royalty (the “king of kings”); God Almighty, All-powerful; (the “lord of lords”); God the Patriarch, God the Omnip-otent.  Those words we like to use for God actually relate better to Caesar & the Senate, and to Governor Quirinius and his military, than they do to Jesus Christ! 

    If there is one thing we can try to do in this New Year, may it be to correct the toxic theology that equates divinity to power -- whether in messianic or in military terms; whether it’s hierarchical, patriarchal, political, or economic -- the Gospel Jesus rejects it all!  

If a new day is coming -- a new social order, a New Creation in the making -- it is only through the persuasion of love (says the Christian Gospel), not force of arms, not divine decrees, not systematic organization & regulation of society, not census-taking, nor tightened citizenship criteria -- that God makes that fresh approach, that new way in the wilderness.  It is through the persuasive experience of being loved that the light finally dawns.

    I appreciate what the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2:  “Let the same
    mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form
    of God, he did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped;
    instead, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in
    human likeness.  And then, when found in human form, he humbled
    himself even more...”                 (Philippians 2: 5-8)

    We usually take the weeks preceding Christmas to “Prepare the Way” for the Coming Christ.  Most of us do it with a frenzy of Christmas shopping, writing greeting cards, and hosting a holiday parties.  (I’m not sure how that gets us prepared for a new encounter with Jesus, the Living Christ/Savior/Deliverer, or kindles a renewed commitment to live his “Way”...)  It seems to me that the question each of us should be asking is not about giving gifts at Christmas, so much as: “What changes should I be making in my life so that the Jesus of the Gospel (not just the baby in the manger) will find a place prepared?” 

   It is the task of the season we call “Epiphany” (these weeks that follow Christmas) to manifest or to reveal or to introduce Jesus to the world – a world not unlike the one to whom Isaiah first spoke: a world in deep darkness, in dis-integration, overly full of grief and loss, chaos and uncertainty – a world in dire need of salvation, of deliverance.

   And we should take this occasion to ask ourselves: Does my image of God’s deliverer (the Messiah) look more like someone within Caesar’s system of  political power, and violence, and coercion? or like the Jesus we first meet in the Christmas story – poor, vulnerable, somewhat foreign, almost like a refugee…

    I am concerned, as I read the news and hear commentary from political pundits, that America’s most widely-held “public” theology has become one that equates divinity to power -- often in messianic terms... American civic religion is hierarchical, patriarchal, political, somewhat militant & certainly market-oriented.  The fact that the Christmas story itself (at its Gospel core) rejects all that does not seem to make a dent in the consumerism of the Christmas season!  

    So much of our American society relies on government regulation and legal coersion, rather than persuasion.  Rather than even try the example of love given to us in Jesus -- which entails re-orienting our values toward forgiveness and reconciliation, toward love of neighbor (not competition), showing mercy whenever possible and extending unearned grace -- we put our trust in force of arms and government mandates, in census-taking and other kinds of legal criteria that serves to exclude the very undocumented worker like Joseph, the homeless pregnant unmarried woman like Mary, and her “illegitimate” baby Jesus.

    If our social values (our attitudes toward others, which is the basic criteria of one’s “morality”) reflect Caesar’s ways rather than Christ’s Way, they are im-moral.  In a world in which power still seems to collect at the top, funneling down through a whole hierarchy of insider henchmen and special interest groups, until it trickles down to the lowly commoner at the bottom of the hierarchy... where can we look for deliverance?  Not to politicians in Washington DC or Sacramento, nor the big name celebrities and sports heroes surrounded by papar-azzi who play to the masses but don’t know what it’s like to live on a shoe-string.

    Where is that One (long promised) who will “lift the yoke of our burden” (as Isaiah puts it) and “remove the bar” from across our (and others’) shoulders; who will break the rod of the oppressor, and bring light into our deep darkness?  Where is that child “who has been born to us” who will “establish justice... from this time onward & forever more” that Isaiah said would (one day) save the world? 

    Yes, Jesus has come – we sing that Good News every Christmas Eve, surrounded by candlelight and poinsettias – but we still need that fresh approach by God (cutting a way though our wilderness, preparing a highway of “unfolding possibilities”) lest “Caesar’s Empire” wins in the end.

Let there be Peace on earth, and let it begin here!  Amen.