A reading from the prophet Isaiah.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord.
My soul shall exult in my God. For He has clothed me with
garments of salvation. He has covered me with the robe
of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a
priest with a beautiful head dress, and as a bride adorns
herself with jewels. For as the earth brings forth
its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to
sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake
I will not be quiet until her righteousness goes forth as
brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings
your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the
mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty
in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your
God. You shall no more be termed
forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate, but you
shall be called. My delight is in her, and your
land married, for the Lord delights in you.
And your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a
young woman, so shall your sons marry you.
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your
God rejoice over you, the word of the Lord.
Let's pray together, Lord, this Christmas.
We pray that your grace and truth would shine brightly, but
also we pray that we would have the the hunger for it.
We pray, Lord, that we would look to you for grace, look to
you for truth, and we pray that it would shine through our
lives, shine through our church as we fulfill our call, as we
follow you in your incarnation. We pray this in Jesus name,
Amen. Well, please be seated this
Christmas tide. We're looking at some of the Old
Testament readings that have been assigned for each Sunday,
and this Sunday is Isaiah 61 and 62.
You can find it in your bulletins on pages 7:00 and
8:00. You can also turn there in your
Bibles. It's Isaiah 61 verse 10 through
62 verse 5 looking at how this these prophets revealed Jesus
even in anticipation of his arrival.
Well in January of 2019, the Chicago Bears were one field
goal away from defeating the Philadelphia Eagles to advance
in the play offs. The Bears trailed the Eagles by
two points and all that Bears kicker Cody Parkey had to do was
to was to make the 43 yard field goal.
At the very last few moments of the game.
He had already missed one and this was his shot at redemption.
And as the the ball sailed into the air, horrifyingly, it veered
to the left and hit the uprights and then fell down and hit the
bottom of the uprights, Soon to be called a double doink.
And the hometown crowd of Soldier Field responded with
merciless horror and hatred. They casted shame and insults
upon this poor man, Cody Parkey. At his lowest moment, probably
of his life, he was. He was booed and humiliated
because he let himself down. He let the team down.
He let the city down and would forever be associated with the
term double dink. It will probably be in his
obituary and would be, in fact, a month later.
The Bears would let him go. Cody Parky was we might call.
This is a moment of disgrace. Have you ever been disgraced in
your life? Probably not at that level, but
have you? But have you ever let someone
down? Have you ever let yourself down?
Have you ever felt embarrassed or humiliated?
Maybe at some point some of us were dishonored and put down by
someone we cared about our very being and worth was sort of
dragged through the mud. Or maybe we we failed just on a
very painful level. Maybe we weren't, you know,
necessarily disgrace, but we just let ourselves down.
We had a standard we wanted to reach and other people were
looking to us, but we didn't meet that standard and we let
ourselves down and others down. We just feel like we failed our
God and ourselves and our tribe. Or maybe it was a relational
rejection. Maybe someone just said I don't
want to be with you anymore. And that just hurts so much that
we still feel the pain, even though it was a long time ago,
still feels present. We still don't feel good enough.
It may have been a long time ago, but whatever the disgrace
might be, it might still be alive to us.
Reliving the moment, hearing the insults, feeling the rejection.
I just want you to imagine for a moment going back to January of
2019. Imagine for a moment if Jesus
Christ had appeared in person, the moment of the double doing
and hoisted Cody Parkey on his shoulders and said, I want
everyone to know I love this man.
I honor this man, and the more that you Boo at him, the more I
will cheer for him. Imagine if that happened in a
greater way, a much greater way. This is what Jesus Christ did
for his disgraced people when he came to this earth.
He came right to the moment, right to the place, right to the
arena of our disgrace. And in the promise of Christmas
tide is this. God's delight overcomes all of
our disgrace in Jesus Christ. God's delight overcomes all of
our disgrace in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
And Isaiah helps us see why Christmas Tide is worth 12 days
of feasting. Not just a moment of gift
giving, but 12 days of really celebrating that Jesus Christ
has come to be in our midst. His incarnation, His being born
as a man was God arriving in person to ashamed people, to a
rejected people, so that he could adorn them in glory and
honor and give them a leadership role for the rest of their life
in the very places of their disgrace.
Let's observe two different gifts of honor from God to his
people in the book of Isaiah. The first gift is this.
God covers our failure with his victory.
God covers our failures with His, with His victory, our
defeats, our setbacks with His victory.
Verse 10 of Isaiah 61 says this. I rejoice greatly in the Lord.
I exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of
salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness.
As a groom wears A turban, as a bride adorns herself with
jewels. We might hear God's disgraced
people singing this as a song about how God has adorned them
in the most glorified clothes in their culture.
Up until that point. You know, God's people were
covered symbolically in ashes and sackcloth, and these were a
symbol of sort of defeat. If you lost, if you had lost
something, if you had lost a battle, if you had failed God,
you put yourself in ashes as a symbol of the fact that you are
a defeated person. May not imagine how much that
would just sink into your identity.
And these ashes, they really did symbolize a national failure on
the part of God's people, not just their military failure,
that was true. Not just their civic failure,
that was also true, but also their spiritual failures.
You know, all they knew was disgrace and shame.
They watched their sons get get murdered in battle.
They watched their daughters be carried off unwillingly by
foreigners, their sacred spaces desecrated sometimes by their
own idolatry. Their fault?
Some of their homes and shops were ransacked.
I mean, can you just even imagine everything that you
poured your life into, run over, bulldozed, set ablaze where the
ash is 'cause you're a failure personally and nationally, your
family's a failure, your tribe's a failure.
And really the probably the worst part is that like they had
the sense God's not with us anymore.
The covenant is broken, it's our fault.
The the treasure we once had, which was the presence of God
himself, is gone. And So what do you wear for the
day? If that's you, you open your
wardrobe, there's sackcloth and there's ashes.
That's what I'm wearing today. So they were very discouraged.
I think, you know, failure has a way of sticking to us like
ashes. You know, ashes are kind of hard
to get, hard to get off your fingers.
It's hard to get off your body. It's like mud, but it's dusty
and it's oily and it's just terrible.
And failure feels like ashes. It's hard to get.
It's hard to get off of you. And we feel terrible about
ourselves. It's very personal.
And then sometimes when we feel terribly about ourselves, we act
terribly. We act out of that identity.
But Isaiah can see a day coming when Emmanuel, God with us,
appears, when God's people will open their wardrobe and they
will see 100%. I am excited about every single
garment in this wardrobe. I could wear everything.
It's a, it's a turban. You probably don't wear turbans.
They wore turbans and they love turbans.
Shimmering garments, beauty, a beautiful array of finely woven
cloth. Amen, Isaiah.
Isaiah calls these clothes garments of salvation.
And one thing that's important to know is that these clothes
represent something spiritually, and they represent beauty.
But not just any beauty, God's moral beauty.
You ever seen moral beauty in action?
You ever seen someone act kindly to someone else?
Have you ever seen a hidden act of generosity?
Do you know that God's moral beauty is what he expects of his
people? Ukrainians wear an embroidered
shirt called Avish Ivanka. You know what Avish Ivanka is?
It's a it's a shirt with beautiful embroidered stuff on
it, different colors depending on the day.
And this shirt has a special symbolism.
They wear it on days of victory. They wear it on wedding days.
You wear, you would wear a Vish Ivanka or a graduation, your
kids graduation, your kid would wear a Vish Ivanka.
There's also a National Ukrainian Victory Day and
everyone wears A Vish Ivanka. They're clothing themselves.
Some people actually wear this under their work clothes as a
sign of like, I am Ukrainian and we are not going to be defeated.
No matter who our enemy is, we are not going to give in.
They wear the clothes of victory.
The garments of salvation are the Vish, Ivanka, for God's
people. They are a symbol of God
rescuing us from our sin, rescuing us from death, rescuing
us from disgrace, and clothing us in victory, which is now our
victory. It's a victory we have and it's
a victory to come and we wear it everyday, a garment of
salvation. Jesus Christ, friends, is our
garment of salvation. That's why He came to be born in
our midst. When he was born, he came to a
people covered in ashes of defeat.
They were militarily defeated. They were spiritually defeated.
They were probably psychologically defeated.
And he came and he was born in their midst to say I will be
your garment of salvation. You can wear my righteousness.
You can wear my salvation for your victory.
And he came to clothe us in that victory through his cross, where
he defeated sin, where he defeated death, where he
defeated hell, where he defeated our greatest enemies that only
want to see us confined into defeat and smashed down and
humiliated forever and ever. Jesus Christ says no, I'm going
to bring you into a broad open place.
Put on my garments of victory and follow me into my Kingdom of
justice and peace. Friends, where do the ashes of
failure still cling to us? Where have these ashes gotten
under our skin, discouraged us into quitting?
Have we, have we quit the fight? Have we quit the call because
the ashes of defeat have gotten under our skin and cling too
closely? This Christmas, friends, we can
exalt in God and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, our garment of
salvation, because he has won. A victory that we can still
claim. A victory that we can still wear
into a world that tends to just discourage us and heap shame on
us and tell us, just give up now.
But one question we might ask is this, what is that victory for?
What are the garments for? You know, is this just to feel
good when we look in the mirror? What difference is that supposed
to make of our life and Our Calling and our church?
Because friends, it's important to know God doesn't just want to
cover us. He wants to cultivate something
in us that he can offer to the world.
And that's where we move to the second gift that God wants to
give us. The second claim of Isaiah is
that God displays His beauty in our humility.
He doesn't just cover our failure with his victory.
He wants to display His beauty through our humility.
Isaiah is going to move to an agricultural image to help us
grasp what God wants to do with every single one of us.
In verse 11 of Isaiah 61 says this for as the earth produces
its growth, and as a garden enables what is sown to spring
up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to
spring up before all the nations.
Do you see the paradox of verse 11?
On the one hand, we're in a humble garden.
It it's kind of earthy language. It's, it's growth that starts in
the dirt. And that's where Israel was.
They were in the dirt when they heard these words.
They were the in the dirt of loss, the dirt of failure, the
dirt of humiliation, the dirt of repentance.
And that's where God does some of his best work.
And from that earthly place, from that dirt place, a garden
springs up, nourishing fruit, delicious produce grows by the
hand of God. And that's the other side of the
paradox, which is that this is for all the nations.
Isn't that amazing? From from, from, from, from the
earthy garden to to global influence.
That's where God does some of his best work.
One of these fruits that God produces and cultivates from the
dirt of our lives is righteousness.
Righteousness. The Hebrew word for
righteousness is seteca, and it refers to God's moral beauty.
You think about like, how would God provide for the poor?
How would he treat the poor? Would he treat them with
contempt? Would he, would he like, would
they be invisible to him like they're invisible to many other
people? No, he he wouldn't trample them.
He would treat them with righteousness.
With Cedeca, he would provide freely and generously for them.
How would God treat an orphan who had no parents with Cedeca?
He would adopt them as his own. He would say, you're mine.
You belong to me. I'm going to cover you.
I'm going to provide for you. How would God, how would the
living God decide a dispute between two people?
Let's say you were in a, in a, in an argument with someone.
You came to the living God and he said, help us sort this out.
How would God treat? How would God solve that problem
with SETECA? He would solve it justly.
He would be creative. He would be, he would not take
bribes from somebody to solve the problem.
He would actually treat it fairly with justice and mercy.
Zedeca righteousness. This is God's true north for the
human race. It's inside out goodness that is
displayed no matter who's watching or who isn't watching.
And it's friends. Don't we long for Zedeca and our
leaders? Don't we long for it and hope
for it in the next generation? Don't we hunger for this kind of
righteousness, this sort of inside out goodness in society?
This is God's moral beauty which he produces and displays from
his people. This is what God is doing in us.
You think about a farmer with prized tomatoes that she brings
to the State Fair. She's she, she brings these
tomatoes sort of like beaming with pride.
Can't wait to show them off. Bright red heirloom tomatoes in
her hands because for months, you know, she's been cultivating
from the dirt. These tomatoes, she's been
pruning, she's been watering, she's been, she's been tending
very, very carefully. And these tomatoes are her pride
and joy and they're for the good of the world.
They're nourishing. They're delicious.
But before they win first prize at the State Fair, they started
in the dirt. They were cultivated in
humility. Friends, Christmas started in
the dirt. Christmas began in Mary, the
mother of God's humble obedience.
Christmas began in Joseph's humiliation.
Christmas began in in the humility of Jesus's Manger.
God was there causing the Sun of Righteousness to grow up, to
spring up, and one day to be displayed before all of the
nations on the cross, before all of the nations in His ascension,
before all of the nations as He sent out His Spirit.
What do you suppose, thinking about this as people of
Christmas, as people of the incarnation, what do you think
God wants to do with your places where you feel like you're in
the dirt? You ever think about that?
What do you think the Lord wants to do through your failure?
What do you think the Lord wants to do through our moments of
humiliation? What do you think the Lord might
do with our sufferings and setbacks?
As we look at Isaiah 61 verse 11, what do you think He wants
to do? Friends, I think what the Lord
is doing in our moments of dirt is He's cultivating something
that isn't always visible at 1st, and that's the fruit of
righteousness. It's growing, it's real.
It's not always seen by people, but there's something
substantial there. There's something nourishing
there, there's something beautiful there, and it's
growing all the while. And eventually it will be
harvested and offered up for the life of the world.
Love is being grown. Joy is being grown in our
failures. Peace is being grown in the
dirt. Faithfulness, friends, what
faithfulness is being grown right now in our setbacks?
The Lord wants to display these things, but first He's got to
grow it. It's got to grow in the inside
soil of our soul. Otherwise, it's just pretending.
And that's not Seneca smoke and mirrors and acting God preening.
Maybe that's what comes in our heads when we think of
righteousness is like the people who kind of act righteous, but
they really aren't. That's not what the world needs
and that's not what God wants to display.
He wants to display real humility, not pretend humility,
real love, not pretend love, real generosity.
And that's grown slowly and beautifully.
You know, sometimes when we experience the moments of dirt,
the moments of ashes, the moments of setbacks, here's
sometimes what we think in our heads, God must be against me.
You ever think that like you have a set back, you have a
failure and you're like, well, maybe God's punishing me.
Maybe he wants me to feel bad and just give up.
And if we give into that thought, we would miss out on
what Isaiah is trying to help us.
See in verse one of I of 6262, verse one says this, I will not
keep silent because of Zion. This is God's servant speaking
here, the one who has the Spirit.
I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep
still because of Jerusalem until her righteousness shines like a
bright light and her salvation like a flaming torch.
Friends, the Lord Himself is working in our stories, our
setbacks, our humiliations to make us a burning torch for the
world, a bright light that displays the glory of God to the
world, Zion and Jerusalem. Guess what?
Didn't see themselves that way? The nations had humiliated them,
the kings of the world had put Zion and Jerusalem in the dirt,
and God's people were ready to quit their call.
Yet Isaiah claims in verse 2, what?
Who will see their righteousness?
Who will see their glory? Those very nations and kings
that put them in the dirt are going to see God's righteousness
through their lives. The very ones who disgraced them
would eventually follow them. Why?
Because God was with them. Because God's moral beauty was
cultivated in their humility until it became a burning torch
in their hands that they carried wherever they went.
They would be a beacon for the world.
So here's a question for us, friends.
What if? What if the Lord is calling us
to humbly lead in the very areas of our disgrace?
What if the Lord is tapping some of us on the shoulder this
morning and saying this? I want you to go back to that
relationship where you felt humiliated, and I want you to
set a higher bar of love and truth with that person.
That's the dignity that you have.
What if he's tapping some of us on the shoulder to say, hey,
look, I want you to go back to the hostel workplace where you
were mocked. And I want you to show moral
beauty to the people who mocked you.
Some of us, he might be tapping on the shoulder and saying, hey,
I want you to return to the place where you were covered in
ashes. And I want you to wear my robe
of victory right there and show them what true dignity looks
like. I've already done it in my
triumphal entry. And I want you to do the same
thing. Now look, some of us might
respond to that call a walk in, and the response is the same as
it always was. It's might still be mocking.
It might still be reacting. They might not see it.
But guess what? We're not doing it for them, for
their reactions. We're doing it for God's glory.
God wants to display whatever He's cultivating.
He wants to display for the life of the world.
Maybe He wants you to display it to me, to display it.
Don't forget about Mary. Remember her song?
Remember that awesome song, the Magnificat?
God has looked with favor on the humble, looked with favor on the
humble condition of His servant. Surely, from now on, all
generations will call me blessed.
The Mighty One has done great things for me.
He has toppled the mighty from their Thrones and exalted the
lowly. Still true God covers our
failure with His victory, and He displays His beauty through our
humility. Now finally, friends, this is
something that we can never forget, especially when we're
disgraced or discouraged. The Lord gets the last word on
our life and calling. The Lord gets the absolute last
word over our life and over Our Calling.
After all of the success and failure, after all the flattery
and all the criticism, after all the highs and all the lows,
after all the trauma and the drama, if we gives our give our
lives to the Lord, our future to the Lord, guess what?
He gets the absolute last word and His words are over.
His children are always in words of encouragement, words of
delight, words of grace and truth.
He gets the last word over us as His children, the last word over
Our Calling, the last word over our parenting, the last word
over our families. Verse the second-half of verse
2, Isaiah reminds us that you will be given a new name that
the Lord's mouth will announce. You will be a glorious crown in
the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the palm of your God's hand.
And you will no longer be called deserted, which was an insult
against Israel. And your land will not be called
desolate, which was another insult against Zion.
Instead, you will be called. My delight is in her.
That's from the mouth of God. And your land married.
Why? Because the Lord delights in
you, and your land will be married.
Mistakes don't name us. Failures don't name us.
Jesus Christ defines us and names us.
In fact, our our gospel reading from the Gospel of John calls us
children of God and God delights over his children.
His name over his children is the final name that we are
called and he's the one who writes our story.
He's the one who writes our true obituary.
He's the one who writes our story that continues beyond our
death. Something interesting happened
after Cody Parkey's double going field goal miss cameras, I think
missed it some, some missed it, but actually right after the
miss, he actually pointed to heaven as if to say thy will be
done. He didn't throw his helmet, he
didn't cuss, he didn't throw a fit.
He didn't blame other people. He didn't storm off the field.
He didn't go into self hatred, self pity, self blame.
Do you know what he did? He actually gathered with some
of his fellow players and some Philadelphia Eagles players in
the middle of the field. You know what they did?
They knelt down and they prayed together.
They knelt down and they prayed even as the booze were being
booed over him. Guess what?
They didn't stick to him like ashes because the prayers from
his heart, what was cultivated in that moment of humiliation
was coming out and being displayed for all of Soldier
Field. Some of them couldn't see it,
but I bet there was a few whose hearts were moved in the middle
of their booze. They're like, wait a second, do
I want to be the person who boos or do I want to be the person
who kneels and prays and shows grace and class and humility?
Where does that set that righteousness, that victory come
from? It comes from the incarnation of
our Lord Jesus, who's right there in the dirt with us,
praying right there in the dirt with us, interceding for us
right there in the moment of humiliation, because He was
there. He went there in the Garden of
Gethsemane. He went there on the cross, and
He's there with us in every moment of set back and failure
and humiliation that we've ever, ever had.
And He's ready, friends, to raise us up with Him in victory
in in resurrection, to raise us up with him where he ascended to
the Father's right hand, where he's currently praying for us.
He won't keep silent, friends, until all of these fruits of
righteousness are born and are grown and are displayed for all
of the world. The Lord Jesus is ready to
cultivate this beauty within us, to cover any defeat with
victory, and to make us friends. That shining torch of praise to
the glory of God in the coming of Jesus.
Friends, God's delight, His delight, overcomes all of our
disgrace. So let's join Mary and Joseph
and the shepherds and the wise men and even Cody Parkey
himself, and praise and honor the living God with the
confidence, the glory, and the humility that He has given us in
His Son, Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.