Christmas Conspiracy: Reclaiming Hope
Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
Let me ask you a question this morning: what is Christmas? Is it eating too much, going to too many parties, shopping too much and spending too much? Is it about giving and receiving gifts Is it about family get togethers? That’s what a lot of people think of when it comes to Christmas. It’s seems that Christmas has been hijacked by our culture and lost its meaning.
Throughout this season of Advent, we are going to be looking at the book of Isaiah. Isaiah really has one job as a prophet and that was to prepare God’s people for the coming reign of the Messiah. At the time Isaiah prophesied these words, only darkness, gloom, and despair was on the horizon. It was a time of great political turmoil. The people around Israel lived in constant fear, with foreign powers threatening to conquer Judah and carry them all off into slavery. One moment they were being pressured into an alliance with a nation, and then the next that same nation was turning on them and threatening their borders. It was a time of, great uncertainty and the sands of the political landscape were continuously shifting. They see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom. In other words, hope had been stolen from them.
When we look out in the world at this time of year, we realize we have allowed our hope to be hijacked. It’s been hijacked by the materialism of the season, by the parties and overeating or even overindulging. It’s been hijacked by the rush to spend more than we can afford and by the fighting of the crowds in the stores to get all of the Christmas shopping done. It’s been hijacked by the focus of the season on self. We need a hope that’s not built on gifts and gift cards but one that’s built on Jesus. It’s time to take back Christmas. It is time to put Jesus back in the center of this season and all of its activities. It’s time to take back hope. It’s time to ground our hope in the only true source of everlasting hope there is: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given….” It is time to reclaim our hope in Jesus Christ!
That leads to a question: Do you believe Jesus can change the world? Do you believe Jesus can change the world? In the midst of such dire circumstances, Isaiah pins the hope of the entire nation, of a complete turn-around of circumstances and total rescue on the simple birth of a child. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.¨ 800 years before there was a manger, 800 years before there wisemen, 800 years before there was a star which hung in the sky, and 800 years before an angel made a pronouncement over the birth of the Messiah, Isaiah wrote about true hope, Christmas hope, the hope of Jesus. It is not a hope that something could happen or even might happen where we are anxiously worrying about whether it will come to pass. True Christmas hope is a hope in things that will happen and gives us a sense of waiting expectantly. This is a joyful expectation and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that the promise which has been made will be fulfilled.
When I think of joyful expectation, I think of a newborn and that long period of nine months as you see that child grow in it’s mother’s womb. You spend so much time talking about what it will be like, preparing for his/her arrival with the purchase of furniture, painting and decorating his/her room and going to classes to make his/her arrival as smooth as can be. And then the day finally arrives and it’s the fulfillment of complete and utter joy. Contrast that with the many broken promises we’ve experienced. The problem is that people don’t always follow through on the promises they make and they let us down. How many of you have had someone break a promises and defeat your hope, your hope for the future, your hope in people?
We serve a God who never since the beginning of time has broken a promise. Joshua 23:14 says, “Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.” This is why we have hope because He is a God who always fulfills his promises. It’s more than an anxious wishing but rather a confident knowing and expectation that a God who promised a child some 800 years before His birth still saw fit to fulfill His promises. And in so doing, we who were a people walking in the darkness of our own making through our sinfulness and selfish decisions now experience a God who caught us before we fell too fall from Him through the gift of a child born in a manger.
Too many of us are living our faith as if hope were a wish. We look at hope as something to be feared because of its uncertainty. We find ourselves standing at the edge of an uncertain future, too afraid to step forward confidently. Why? Because we are focusing too much on the unknown and too little on a known God. For those who have been redeemed by Christ, hope is more than a nervous wish but instead is a joyful expectation in one who will never let you down. This is our hope. And when we have this kind of hope, it builds in us confidence. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Confidence is knowing not only the person of the God as we approach but the trustworthiness of our God. Isaiah’s words for us today were not a wish but a bold assertion that not only God can but God will do. Isaiah says, we know a God who has made a promise and we also can count on it.
Imagine what might happen if we could really reclaim that kind of hope. If we could reclaim hope that all people of every tongue and nation can and will not only live together but worship together and share life together. Imagine if we could reclaim hope for this city and our region so that it’s not based on the myriad of announcements for new buildings and new project of which so many have fallen by the wayside but instead is based on what God can do because we have decided he’s going to be the center of our lives. Imagine what might happen in the midst of these uncertain financial times that we could reclaim the hope that God provides and will meet our very need so that we can be free to give sacrificially. Imagine what might happen if we reclaimed to power of hope of Jesus in our every day lives, in our relationships, in our work, in our finances and in our challenges and problems. If we can reclaim hope then we will not let anything get in the way of what we know God will do: in the life of our church, in the lives of our family members and in our lives on a daily basis. We refuse to let our hope be hijacked in the face of the overwhelming amount of work to be done in rebuilding but instead we hope in a God who always brings resurrection when we place him first. Imagine if we didn’t allow our hope to be hijacked and instead we reclaimed it. Imagine if we didn’t allow fear and prejudice and financial anxiety to hijack our hope knowing that God has all the resources we need and He will bring resurrection to one of the most unique and yet broken cities in the country.
We need to reclaim hope this Christmas season not just for our church, not just for our city but for ourselves. This doesn’t have to be one of those Christmases sacrificed on the altar of materialism. Instead we need to trust that God will re-teach us the truth that Christmas is not about us but about the Christ child and that this life is not about us but about Jesus and other people. It’s about not only reclaiming Jesus but reclaiming who we really are in Jesus and that means what we do and how we invest our time this Advent. Rather than hope being this far off uncertain thing which may or may not happen, hope can become a joyful expectation that God is faithful, that God does deliver, that God does love me and my family, and that God is going to do something great in my life when I commit and live for him.
If there’s this joyful expectation, what is it that we are to be expecting? “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” The hope that we have at Christmas is that Christ came to establish his kingdom of God here on earth in our midst. It’s not that hope that we will get to someday but it’s the kingdom of God here on earth in our lives right now, in our neighborhood, at my work, in my family and in my own life as well. When we pray the Lord’s prayer, we pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
This Christmas, we can reclaim hope by engaging in that childlike faith, by not just standing from afar looking at the manger but coming before the King and worshipping Him as he enters this world and our lives. This Advent, let us live confidently and joyfully expecting God to establish his kingdom here on earth, not just around me but in me and through me. No matter how hurried, how rushed, how overwhelmed you may get this Christmas season, don’t let anything hijack your hope or the meaning of Christmas. What God has promised will come to pass. The difference is one of hope. And the reason that this hope is a certainty is because of the identity of the child that Isaiah prophecizes. We recognize this child as Jesus as God Himself become human. We know that things can and will change because this is no ordinary child. This child is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe. And His decision to enter our world and become human changes everything.
The difference is one of hope because we now know that in all the things we face all the struggles and pains and rejections and heartbreaks of life, we do not face them alone. Isaiah says they will call him Immanuel which means, “God with us.¨ So you see the birth of this one child changes everything because it contains for us the promise of God’s presence, the promise that everything we face in life we can face with Immanuel, with God. During difficult time, times of great pain and anguish, we need to be reminded of the presence of God and to try to point out where God is working and helping and walking alongside. And to allow God to offer hope through His presence with us in those times. And that really does change things. As people we have been created with a need to face life together to come alongside each other to support and encourage and offer help through times of despair. In Christ, we have someone beside us who knows us completely, who loves us more than we can possibly imagine, who has sacrificed everything for our eternal good, and who longs to meet us and walk with us through all the circumstances of life. Some of those circumstances He even chooses, by His power, to change sometimes He heals, He restores, He takes a person like Job who has lost absolutely everything except his life, and in the end gives him back twice as much as he had before the trial. And sometimes, He takes us by the hand and walks us or people we love through death. The constant thing, through every part, is the presence of God with us. Immanuel. That is where the hope comes from. That is the first gift of Christmas the gift of hope. How can we know that hope, how can we experience the reality of God with us as we face the difficult circumstances of life?
