Not What I Expected
Isaiah 9:1-2
When I was in seventh grade, like so many youth at that age, music became a huge part of my life. I was awakened to the sounds of music of Elton John’s Greatest Hits, SuperTramps’ Breakfast in America and Led Zepellin 2. So my hope and dream was to build a stereo system for my bedroom including a turntable, cassette player, receiver and a set of great speakers. I did my research and then turned in my list of components to my parents. When Christmas morning came, it was not what I expected. Instead of getting a pumping stero system with high end components, which my parents later told me they couldn’t all afford, they decided to get me this: Image, an all in one steroe. This was not what I asked for, nor what I wanted. Boy was I ever surprised. Christmas can be full of the unexpected. You’re expecting one thing and then the unexpected shows up. That can happen during the Christmas season. The unexpected shows up unannounced and it can destroy the joy of this season for us. But during these holidays, I want you to remember, if the unexpected shows up knocking on your door, invites itself in, invades your personal space, and seeks to destroy or take away your smile, remember you can still expect God to show up as well.
That's what the Christmas event is all about - God showing up in the midst of the unexpected. Mary was a 13 year old virgin impregnated by the Holy Spirit, poor, uneducated and from a nothing little town which was so small that it didn’t even appear on the map. She gives birth to the Savior in a cave which served as a barn filled with animals and the dung to go with it and places the child in a stone trough. For Israel who had been looking and praying for a Savior for more than 7 centuries, the unexpected showed up in unexpected circumstances. Not only was the birth of the Savior not what they expected. This babe grew up to be a man and He was not the type of Savior they expected either.
In our Scripture today, Isaiah prophesizes that God was going to send a Savior into the world and that there would be light despite the darkness. Isaiah was living in uncertain times. The Northern Kingdom of Israel had been humbled to their knees by the invasion of the growing superpower Assyria while Egypt to the south was still trying to hold onto Israel and threatening to attack. And Judah was stuck right in the middle at ground zero. In the midst of all of this, their government was waffling about who to place their alleges in, there were wars and rumors of wars, there were terrorist attacks and families were going without proper nourishment. Isaiah stood in this uncertain time and proclaimed God will show up.
He came up with a word that helped him get from the uncertainty surrounding combined with all the doubts it caused to knowing that God was going to show up. This word created a bridge for him so that he could remember that God would indeed come despite the circumstances. It's a small preposition, but it makes all the difference in the world. Isaiah begins our Scripture today with that word, "nevertheless." Looking right into the darkness and the tough times, Isaiah said “Nevertheless, God will show up.” This is how he says it in chapter 9, "Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress." Nevertheless. Nevertheless, say that with me: nevertheless.
There might be times of darkness, gloom and distress in your life, but nevertheless there will come a time when God will show up. It’s not a question of if but when. Does anybody know what Isaiah is talking about? While you’re in the midst of hard times and things were looking pretty bleak and you didn't know how or if things would work out, “nevertheless, God showed up.” Have you ever been there? Nevertheless, God came through. What Isaiah is saying is that despite dark days, despite dark nights, despite uncertainty, God shows up, nevertheless. In the midst of the darkness, the light of the Messiah will shine through. There was an experiment with the Hubble telescope where they redirected it from the lights from visible stars and planets and focused it into the utter darkness of space. So they shined it into blackness and left it there for one day, two days, and then on the 14th day there appeared galaxies that exist beyond the darkness. The point is this: Christmas is our promise that there will always be light past your darkness. Nevertheless! That’s the promise of Christmas. When times looked bad, Isaiah knew that God would come in a Son as the evidence that there would never be just darkness. That is the promise that Christmas brings. In the very worst of times, God has always shown up. So when the dark clouds roll into your life, and you can't see how things are going to make it, and there's a gap between where you are and where you need to be, I want you to remember that one word in the midst of that darkness, nevertheless, the God we serve will show up.
But it’s not just during times of crisis and uncertainty, God also shows up on ordinary days in unexpected ways. The shepherds had gotten up early; they got dressed and got their morning coffee, kissed the kids goodbye, made their commute to work, parked their camels and began to tend to the temple sheep. It was a normal day and guess what, the word says that God showed up. "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were terrified." Luke 2:9 There on the side of a mountain and in the midst of the shepherd’s terror, God showed up, delivering that first Christmas gift, a GPS system, which was a star that led them to front row seats to the greatest event the world has ever seen!
God shows up in unexpected ways. The Bible tells us that God's ways are not our ways and sometimes in the midst of our darkness, God will show up in unexpected ways. But even though that is the case, when it is all said and done, God will always deliver something beyond what you and I can imagine. The unexpected - that is God's playground. In the midst of our darkness, that is where God does his best work. In the midst of uncertainty, that is where God's creative potential is fully realized. God shows up in unexpected ways but delivers better things than we can imagine if we just hold on long enough.
Isaiah wrote, "Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, for they that wait on the Lord they shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah knew a thing or two about waiting on the Lord. When Isaiah proclaimed the words in our Scripture for today, it’s 680 years before Christmas. That's 248,200 days he waited. But he waited nonetheless. Why? Because God’s gonna show up. I don't know what your uncertainty looks like, what your darkness is, but I do know that because of Christmas, we have a Savior and at the end of the day, nevertheless, God will show up. No matter how long you’ve been waiting, never give up because God’s gonna show up.
The brand new pastor and his wife were assigned to their first church in Brooklyn and were to reopen it. They arrived in early October excited about their opportunities. When they saw the church, it was run down and needed a lot of work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve. They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls, painting, and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished. On December 19, a terrible driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days. After the rain stopped, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit. He cleaned up the mess on the floor and decided to postpone the Christmas Eve service. On the way home, he noticed that a local business was having a garage sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to church.
By that time, it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus which would arrive 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder and hung the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area perfectly. Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were living in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week but he was captured, sent to prison and she never saw her husband or her home again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth but she told him to keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home, which was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.
On Christmas Eve, the church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return. One older man from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare. The pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall. The pastor explained and then the man said it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and wondered how there could be two tablecloths so much alike. He told the pastor when the Nazis came he forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was supposed to follow her, but was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again. The pastor then asked if he would allow him to take the man for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island, to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and that day, he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine. as this huband and wife embraced each other of the first time 35 years. God shows up in the unexpected. Have you ever been there?
This Christmas if life has changed for you, nevertheless, God will show up in ways better than you imagined. Wait on God, because in those unimaginable times and in unexpected conditions, nevertheless, God will show up and when he does, God always brings new life. On that first Christmas, God showed up in an unexpected and scandalous way. He didn't show up in a mansion, but in a manger. He didn't show up to high society, but to lowly shepherds. He didn't show up to Jewish religious leaders, but to foreign wise men. It was a unexpected and scandalous birth. And in the despair and uncertain conditions of our lives, in God's hands it leads to scandalous, unexpected God possibilities.
That's what Christmas is all about - knowing that in the face of darkness, despite what we might see and despite what we cannot see, we have a Savior and because of him, even though we might have to wait a while, nevertheless, he will show up and there shall come forth life. Isaiah puts it this way in 9:6 and this is our promise for today and for tomorrow, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.".
I don't know how your Christmas has been or what the circumstances of your life are right now, but don’t ever forget that word and the promised that’s contained therein. Say it with me: “Nevertheless!” Again, “Nevertheless!” May God bless you as he shows up in unexpected ways today, through the holiday and in the coming New Year. Amen and Amen.
