A Sign from the Lord
Today at the 11:00 service we dedicated little Aiden Keith Ballantine. If you were to ask his mom and dad and grandparents, they would happily tell you how his birth has changed their lives. A friend of mine, Eric, and his wife, Bridget, had their first baby this week. It’s been so sweet to watch Eric’s excitement growing in the last few months and then especially in recent days when their daughter was born on the 17th. Eric has been filling up Facebook with photos and comments of unabashed love and joy. Posts accompanying pictures like: “We are head over heels in love with her.
December 22, 2013
Isaiah 7:10-16, A Sign from the Lord
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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Do you see that? That light on the second floor is our daughter’s room. This is the first time I have seen that light. She’s here, she’s home.
If I look frazzled, forget your name, or mine, just know that I am in eternally in love/pre-occupied with this girl I just met, goes by the name of Evie.
I am presently pinned down under a gorgeous 7 pound entity sleeping on top of me for the last two hours. Basically in heaven.
Finally, Bridget posted: “Eric and I do not and will not ever underestimate how blessed we are to have a healthy baby. So many things could have gone wrong, especially with my “advanced maternal age” but everything went right instead. Glory be to God!”
For the Ballantine’s, for Eric and Bridget, and as many of us have experienced, it’s amazing how something as small, weak, powerless, and utterly dependent as a baby can have such a huge, strong, powerful and directing impact on all those around the child. There’s a sense in which we don’t have children. Children have us. The lives of parents and even grandparents quite often are structured around loving, nurturing, and caring for our children and grandchildren. Even if one doesn’t have children, we can all grasp the truth of how something very small can have a huge impact. An engagement ring isn’t very big, but it has a big impact on one’s life. Anyone who thinks something small can’t have a big impact hasn’t slept in a dark bedroom with a mosquito.
The reason I’m talking about small things like babies and rings and how large an impact little things can have is because the birth of a little baby is obviously the big event that Christians celebrate at Christmas time. On the one hand, the birth of a baby is one of the most natural and common things in the world, it happens every day all over the earth. Most of the time, the birth of other people’s children has no impact on us whatsoever. It’s a big planet. Yet as small as babies are and as common as it is for babies to be born, there’s a spiritual lesson that we can easily forget. In life we often look for God in the presence of the large, the spectacular, and the unusual. When we don’t see those sorts of things, we may dismiss the reality of God or the Lord’s presence in our lives. Especially when we’re facing a tough challenge or we’re going through a difficult period, we want God to act in a big dramatic way to give us assurance and strengthen our faith. Often, though, God doesn’t work like that; sometimes yes, but for most of us most of the time, there aren’t too many “parting the Red Sea, walk on the water, win Mega Millions” kind of moments. For most of us, for most of life, God’s presence, God’s signs, are much smaller and found right in front of us in the ordinary, everyday, often overlooked moments of life.
One person in the Bible who was facing a tough challenge and was looking for the Lord to act in a big, spectacular way was King Ahaz of Judah. In Isaiah 7, it‘s a time of war. Ahaz is the King of Judah, and Syria and Ephraim came to wage war against Ahaz’s capital of Jerusalem, but they couldn’t conquer it. Even though they were holding off the attacks, King Ahaz and the people were so scared that Isaiah 7:2 says the king’s, “heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest before the wind.” The Lord tells Isaiah to give King Ahaz a pep talk to assure him this situation is nothing to worry about. The Lord says to Isaiah, Tell him, “Be careful, keep calm and don’t be afraid. Do not lose heart.” Basically God says, “Fugettaboutit, it’s nothing to worry about, I know their plans, they’re not going to succeed.” Finally, Isaiah is to tell the king (Isaiah 7:9): “If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.” You need to know that context to understand Isaiah 7:10-16 which says:
“Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11 Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. 13 Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.”
King Ahaz wasn’t standing firm in the faith; he was weak in the knees, doubting in his mind, and losing heart. He didn’t believe the words Isaiah spoke were true and he was scared. So the Lord does something we don’t see too often in the Bible, the Lord says, “Pick a sign, any sign, it can be as deep or high or difficult as you want, go ahead, try me.” Faint hearted, frightened, and faltering in faith, Ahaz refuses. Now some of us may think he’s trying to do the right thing. If anyone knew the commandment about not putting God to the test, God knew it; that was the commandment Jesus remembered in the wilderness when he was tempted by Satan. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Matthew 4:7) So why not commend King Ahaz for getting it right? He didn’t want to test the Lord, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that is when God straight up gives you the opportunity and you still fail to act on faith and trust the Lord, that doesn’t go over well. Then the Lord gets ticked off, at least the prophet Isaiah does, and basically says, “For goodness sake, let me spell it out for you, a pregnant young woman is going to have a son named Immanuel and before the kid grows up enough to be able to distinguish between right and wrong the land of the two kings you’re so worried about is going to be deserted and there will be no more danger.” In other words, the enemies you fear, the situation that seems so difficult and overwhelming, in just a short time, will pass and you won’t have to worry about it anymore. Personally, I would like to get a sign like that from the Lord, wouldn’t you? It would help us to endure a difficult present if we knew the situation was temporary, whatever the challenge is; it won’t always be this bad. That would help us to stand firm and to endure wouldn’t it?
It’s important to understand, Isaiah wasn’t talking about Jesus when he said these words to King Ahaz. He was talking about a young woman at that time who was pregnant. The birth of the baby and the beginning of his young life and his name Immanuel, God with us, would be a reminder to King Ahaz that the Lord was with him and there was no need to be afraid. When the king needed to stand firm in faith, the sign from the Lord was a little baby who couldn’t stand himself. Ahaz probably would have preferred a sign of 10,000 warriors or a tank or a few planes or drones that could destroy his enemies. What he got for a sign was a baby. When we face fearful enemies of any sort, from within or without, in our heart or body or mind, what we need to do is stand firm in faith and trust that the Lord will give us signs that the Lord is Immanuel; God is with us. Often those signs are small and can be missed if we’re not paying attention.
Most of you know it’s been a tougher year than usual for me – it’s been both a physical and mental challenge. Like many of you, when you go through those times, you look for signs that the Lord is with you in the midst of it all. On Friday, Jill and I were at one of our favorite restaurants for lunch. When we finished and I asked for the check, our server said our bill had been paid and she indicated a couple at a table not far from ours. I looked over and didn’t recognize them. I walked over and the couple also got up since they were leaving too. I put out my hand and introduced myself and began to say “Thank you,” when the man said he recognized my voice because when he had been hit really hard with a bad case of the shingles at the beginning of the year and been stuck lying at home for quite some time waiting to get better. He said that during that time he had listened to my sermons through our church website and that my sermons had gotten him through and he was really grateful so he was happy to be able to pick up our lunch. It turns out their son went to Nauset Regional High School with Nathan and Greg. It was a very cool moment and I invited them to a Christmas Eve service. Later on Friday, Jill and I continued to talk about how their totally unexpected generosity and kindness made our day. It was a small thing, (I would have had more than a sandwich for lunch if I had known someone else was buying J), yet it wasn’t small in its impact. Sometimes the Lord’s signs to us that encourage us to stand firm in faith are small.
This passage from Isaiah 7 about the young woman (Hebrew almah) who has a baby named Immanuel is one that Matthew’s Gospel looks back and refers to in Matthew 1:18-25 that we heard earlier in the service. The author of Matthew, searched through the Hebrew Bible for passages that could refer to Jesus and noticed how Jesus’ birth matched what happened in Isaiah 7:14. In the first century, at another time of trouble and fear, a young woman would give birth to a little baby, and in the case of Jesus, that baby would be an even bigger sign from the Lord and have a far greater impact than the baby born during the reign of King Ahaz. In Isaiah the baby’s name is Immanuel, God with Us. Joseph is told to name his and Mary’s baby, Jesus, because he would “save his people from their sins.”
These are two of the most important promises that God offers to us in life that we have to decide whether we will believe, trust, and accept or not. The promise that God is with us and that in Jesus our sins may be forgiven. What a huge difference it makes believing, trusting, and knowing that God is with us and our sins can be forgiven. When God wanted to come to humanity, the Lord came not with anger, judgment, or vengeance but as a vulnerable baby so that no one needs to fear approaching the Lord. God wants to be received and held and loved, just like a new born baby does. Part of the amazing message of Christianity is that God chose not to come to the world like a Marvel Comics superhero, but as a baby. Babies need people to love them in order to survive. God longs to be loved too, and so do most people. Of course, the baby Jesus grew and now is more in the position of a parent than a child. We are the ones who need to be born spiritually into God’s family.
If the Lord had a Facebook page, there’d be posts on it very similar to the ones my friend Eric wrote his new baby girl, only they’d be about you. The Lord would fill the page with photos and comments of unabashed love and joy. Posts would accompany your picture like: “I am head over heels in love with her. Do you see that? That light on the second floor is my daughter’s room. This is the first time I have seen that light. She’s here, she’s home. Know that I am in eternally in love/pre-occupied with this girl I just met, goes by the name of (fill in your own). Basically in heaven. Glory be to… Me!” As I was working on my message this week, I came across the following statement and prayer about babies and children:
“As millions of Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas and their belief that God entered human history as a poor tiny baby, let us remember all the poor babies and children who struggle to live and realize their God given potential in our own rich land and all around the world today. And commit to act to assure hope and justice for them all.” Let’s pray:
O God of the children of Somalia, Sudan, and Syria, of South Africa and South Carolina,
Of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and of India, Iraq, Iran, and Israel
Of the Congo and Chicago, of Darfur and Detroit
Of Myanmar and Mississippi and Louisiana and Yemen
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of Black and Brown and White and Albino children and those all mixed together,
Of children who are rich and poor and in between,
Of children who speak English and Russian and Hmong and Spanish and languages our ears cannot discern,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of the child prodigy and the child prostitute, of the child of rapture and the child of rape,
Of runaway or thrown away children who struggle every day without parent or place or friend or future,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of children who can walk and talk and hear and see and sing and dance and jump and play and of children who wish they could but can’t
Of children who are loved and unloved, wanted and unwanted,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of beggar, beaten, abused, neglected, homeless, AIDS, drug, violence, and hunger-ravaged children,
Of children who are emotionally and physically and mentally fragile, and of children who rebel and ridicule, torment and taunt,
Help us to love and respect and protect them all.
O God of children of destiny and of despair, of war and of peace,
Of disfigured, diseased, and dying children,
Of children without hope and of children with hope to spare and to share,
Help us to love and respect and act to protect them all.
–Copyright 2013 by Marian Wright Edelman
A baby, a child, Jesus is the greatest sign of God’s love for us, and the promise of his presence with us always is the best gift of Christmas.