In the Name of Jesus, the little baby
with God’s face, dear fellow redeemed,
More
than any other Old Testament prophet, Isaiah helps us understand what Jesus
means. He paints the most vivid pictures of the Lord’s coming and work for us.
Even though he’s writing some seven hundred years before Christmas, Isaiah
helps us understand what’s going on with Jesus’ birth.
To
help us understand what Isaiah’s saying about Jesus’ birth, we’re going to take
a look at this picture. You saw it when you came in and it’s in the bulletin. The
painting is an Ethiopian rendition of our Lord’s birth and the coming of the
Magi. Ethiopia has been a Christian nation since ancient times and has a very long
history of Christian art.
There’s one thing that
really sticks out about this painting. It’s the eyes. Artists can show you a
lot by the way they paint eyes. For example, when you look at a painting,
follow the eyes of the people in the painting and they will draw you to the
thing the artist wants to make sure you see. In this painting all eyes—even the
eyes of the cattle—are on Jesus and His mother. They are looking at each other.
One
of the features of Ethiopian art is to paint people’s eyes much bigger than
they actually are. They’re way out of proportion! You sort of get the feeling
that the people in the painting are staring back at you! They did this
intentionally to draw you into the picture and into the narrative. [1]
Our
text says, “The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they
sing for joy; for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion.” Here in
Isaiah, the eyes are important too. God is coming so close that you can see Him
face to face! You can see God and there is joy!
We know that this is not the way things
usually play out when God shows up. Remember in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve
sinned and then God came walking in the garden? They were afraid to even stand
in God’s presence! When Moses saw God in the burning bush he had to cover his
face. When God appeared on Mt. Sinai the people asked Moses to speak for God
instead of God speaking to them, Even Isaiah, who saw just the train of God’s
robe when he was called, knew that standing in God’s presence as a sinner was a
really bad thing! In that moment of terror he says, "Woe is me! For I am
lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of
unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" For
sinners like us, standing in God’s presence should be the end of us!
Even
in the New Testament, this trend continues. When Peter has Jesus in his boat
and Jesus gives him a miraculous catch of fish, falls down before Him and says,
“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” When the disciples where with
Jesus and saw Him in all His glory at on the Mount of Transfiguration, they
could not help but fall down in terror.
God’s
holiness and human sinfulness simply cannot mix. We cannot stand in God’s
presence. We haven’t done the things we should have done. We’ve gone and done things
we shouldn’t have done instead. God showing up among us shouldn’t be a good
thing. If God is coming to us, we should be terrified!
But
look again at the people in our picture. None of them have a look of terror in
their eyes. None of them have shocked expressions on their face. Even the
cattle are at peace. Actually, everyone is smiling in this picture.
Why
is Christmas different? Why is the LORD’s appearance among us celebrated with
joy instead of terror? Why does Isaiah say over and over again in this text
that the LORD’s arrival will be marked with singing and rejoicing?
The
answer is found in the baby. God didn’t come to us in a burning bush,
terrifying mountain, or horrible vision, but as a little baby. All of those
times God appeared to His people show that God wants to be with us. He isn’t
content to let everything drift further and further out of control. He’s steps
in and helps His people when they are in trouble.
Every terrifying appearance
of God in the Old Testament reaches its fulfillment in this little baby. A baby
isn’t scary. His arms have those little rolls that you just want to pinch and
squeeze and you just want to count all the toes on His beautiful little feet!
We can relate to that. All of us were babies once.
God lets us see Him. Normally
looking at God face to face would mean death for sinners. But since Jesus comes
like one of us, we can look at Him and He doesn’t have to hide anything. Hebrews
1:3 tells us what this means, “He is the radiance of the glory of God, the
exact imprint of His nature.” Here is God’s glory in the face of a little baby.
So Mary and Joseph get to look at God eye to eye in the face of the little baby
they are holding. There is no terror, only love. They love their baby and their
baby loves them—more than they can know.
Those of you who have
held your newborn child know what this is like. You look into the babies eyes
and he or she knows you! They’ve been listening to your voice for nine months
in the womb and now they recognize you. You’ve been waiting for them and
expecting them. It is love at first sight.
The same is true in an
even greater way with baby Jesus. We look into His eyes and see the one we’ve
been expecting and longing for. He looks at us and He loves us. Not just
because He’s been with us for nine months already, but because He made us and
He is here to save us.
“The LORD has bared His holy arm before the
eyes of all the nations” The LORD is rolling up His sleeves and He is ready to
get to work. We know what that work is going to be. Just a few verses later we
hear these words about what will happen to this baby.
Isaiah 53 says, “He was
wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was
the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have—every one—turned to his own way; and
the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
These beautiful feet
would not look pretty covered with blood and with nails sticking through them.
These arms would be striped bear and hands nailed to a cross. These are the
beautiful feet which have come to bring us good news. This is the arm of the
LORD, which stretched out to show God’s salvation to the ends of the earth.
When this would happen,
we get to see just what it is like to look into God’s eyes when He is angry.
Jesus did that for you so that you don’t have to. He himself is our peace and
He brings peace to you.
If that were all there
was to Jesus, there wouldn’t be so much joy in Christmas. But His resurrection from
the dead gives us joy far beyond anything else this world has to offer. Those
feet with nail scars come to bring you good news to you today. That living arm reaches
out to embrace you with His love. The little Lord Jesus is our living LORD and
redeemer. Whenever He comes there’s reason for us to rejoice.
Look at what happens to
the shepherds. After seeing Jesus, they go out with joy to share the good news
with everyone! Shepherds are not known for having nice looking feet. But that
night the shepherds of Bethlehem had the most beautiful feet in the whole
world. That’s because the message they brought was so beautiful, it couldn’t
help but make all them as radiant as the sky when the angels appeared to them.
We get to share this
good news. We get to have beautiful feet when we bring this good news to our
friends and family. All the ends of the earth are going to see this. Look at
how this good news has made it to the ends of the earth! Here we are, the
children of Europeans, sitting in the United States, looking at a picture made
in Ethiopia! In all three of these places, people are celebrating today. They
rejoice because Jesus has come for them.
We rejoice too. Usually
we celebrate other people’s birthdays by giving them a gift and sharing in
their joy that way. We celebrate Jesus’ birthday by giving everyone else
presents. What if people celebrated your birthday that way? Imagine someone
coming up to you and saying, “Hey man, I’m so excited about your birthday, that
I gave everyone else presents!” What would you think?
Jesus doesn’t mind. In
fact, we come to God’s house today and He gives us more! Come to His table
today and receive the gift that He has for you in the Lord’s Supper. Today we
get to see Jesus, not quite like Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds did that first
Christmas, but we get to see Him nonetheless. He comes to us today in bread and
wine. We get to see Him in a way that we get to touch, taste, and smell. This
is how we proclaim His death until He comes again.
He is coming again.
There will be a day when we won’t need pictures anymore because we will Him
face to face. There will be a day when all the prophecies and promises are
fulfilled. There will be a day when sorrow and sadness, disease and dying,
trouble and turmoil will all be put to an end. There will be a day when every
eye will see that our God reigns!
On that day there will
be singing and rejoicing as the tombs are opened and we see Him face to face. First
John 3:2 says “We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we
shall see him as he is.” Our joy today is just a little taste of what that joy
will be like—joy that will never end. Amen.
[1]
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-08-11/news/1996224118_1_ethiopian-art-processional-cross-iconic-art
http://www.thenextcanvas.com/about-ethiopian-art/
