Isaiah 49:5-6 “And now the Lord says—he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel for himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength—he says: ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

From the very moment that Jesus was conceived, the Lord was putting him together in such a way that he should answer this calling to serve as a light to the Gentiles. Just think of the ways in which Jesus was already acting as God’s servant before he was born. When Mary went to visit Elizabeth after Gabriel announced that she would carry the Savior of the world, Elizabeth immediately rejoiced. She was strengthened in her faith to be in her Savior’s presence. John the Baptist leaped for joy inside Elizabeth because he was in his Savior’s presence. From the very beginning God was using Jesus as his servant.

Look at how Jesus served God’s purposes from the moment he was born. The baby Jesus preached no sermons, but his very presence increased the faith of lowly shepherds. He turned them into missionaries, and moved them to praise God. As an infant he did the same thing for old Simeon and Hannah in the temple. Before he could speak a word he was a light to those around him.

There are several different purposes a light can serve. We usually use them to help us see. But in times past there has been another common use for lights. They serve as a beacon or marker. They mark a spot so that we can find it, like a lighthouse marks the shore line or runway lights show where the runway is. 

Jesus served as this kind of light when the Lord called him to bring Jacob back, to gather Israel to himself. Although these people had turned their back on him time after time, God still wanted to gather them to himself. Jesus was the beacon who showed them where to go.

It was never God’s intention to share the Gospel with just one nation. When he chose Abraham’s family as his chosen people, he promised that through Abraham ALL nations on earth would be blessed. Jesus’ light led all nations to their God. 

Not everything Jesus went through to be the light to the Gentiles was pleasant. Isaiah describes him as one who was despised and abhorred by the nation. Throughout his life Jesus was challenged and despised by the ruling groups in Israel: the self-righteous Pharisees, the liberal Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, the priests.

By the time Good Friday came, it seemed as if the whole nation had turned against him. His twelve best friends betrayed, denied, or deserted him. Common criminals mocked and insulted him. God himself turned away from the pitiful sight of Jesus on a cross. His death was not a pleasant sight. Isaiah later describes him as one who was despised and abhorred.

But as the last little flame of life in him flickered and failed, at just that moment the light of the world was blazing away, finally making it clear just how God would save all people. His death may have been very humble, but it shows all the world the glory of God’s love. It lights the only way back to the Father, the only way to heaven.

Numbers 24:17 “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.”

People try to be very careful about the words they use to describe their position on some issue or the kinds of things they do. They want to sound positive and optimistic instead of negative and pessimistic. Pro-life seems to sound better than anti-abortion. Physically challenged is preferred by some to physically handicapped.

We find the same emphasis in many of the ways that we describe Jesus’ work for us. Jesus has come to bring us salvation. He forgives our sins. He brings us God’s love, peace and joy. But all of these gifts also required him to do some things which may sound very negative. In order to save God’s children, he had to conquer, crush, and destroy God’s enemies. In order for us to enjoy eternal safety and security in the Kingdom of our God, the Kingdom of Satan and all who follow him must be reduced to rubble.

The prophet Balaam, who spoke these words, and the people of Moab he served were an example of one such enemy that needed to be crushed. They were making war against Israel. In doing so, they weren’t just attacking God’s children. They were attacking his promise of the Savior, who was to be born to this people and born in this part of the world. Even before his birth, as God in heaven Christ saw to it that everyone who opposed God’s plan to save us, including these Moabites, was taken out of the way and defeated.

He still fights for us today. Of course, he would prefer to defeat his human enemies by turning them into his friends. When we were God’s enemies he changed our hearts to make us his children instead. He still slashes away at our own sinful natures, which are still his enemies, reducing their influence on our lives. He still fights countless spiritual battles for us we aren’t even aware of, and he wins them every time. That may not be the image we usually think of when we think of our gentle, loving Savior.

The baby in the manger doesn’t look like a conquering hero. But as we see him in the words of the prophet Balaam, we see him conquer, and the enemies he conquers are our enemies, too. Their defeat means salvation for you and me.

Numbers 24:17 “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob.”

Balaam son of Beor wasn’t a very likely preacher of the Gospel. Not only was he a religious mercenary, a prophet for hire who would speak a message from any god people paid him to represent. In this case he had set himself up against the true God and his people. Balak, the king of the Moabites, had hired him to put a curse on Israel as they marched toward the Promised Land. He intended to wipe them out in battle.

Balaam hoped he could manipulate the Lord into letting him speak the curse and collecting the fee. He had no true faith in God. He only thought that he could control the Lord for his own selfish purposes. God turned the tables on him. Balaam ended up being the one under control, serving God’s purposes.

Whether he appreciated it or not, Balaam got a glimpse of our coming Savior’s glory, a glimpse he was privileged to share with everyone else. Balaam saw him here. This was not Joshua or Aaron or Moses or any other leader of the time. What Balaam sees is not now, and not even near. What Balaam sees is over a thousand years away, in a stable in Bethlehem, on a seashore in Galilee, or on a cross outside Jerusalem.

But did Balaam really see? We are told later in the book of Numbers that when he failed to curse Israel for King Balak, this same man devised another way to turn God against them. He suggested using the women of Moab to tempt them into worship of Baal and sexual immorality. After all God had gone through with Balaam, after all Balaam had seen, he still couldn’t put his vision of Christ together with faith. He saw him with his eyes and with his mind, but he never saw him with his heart. He remained his enemy to the end.

Isn’t that all too common a problem as Christmas approaches– People see the newborn Savior with their eyes, but not their hearts? Millions will file past manger scenes in shopping malls or drive past them in front of churches or homes. Often, their reaction will be nothing more than “how cute,” or “how sad,” or “how poor.” A thousand secular choirs will sing “Silent Night,” or “Away in a Manger,” but how many will see their Savior from sin hidden beneath the sentimental music?

We need to be reminded, too. The baby in the manger is not just a Christmas decoration. He is Christmas itself. Our Savior IS now, and he IS near. At this moment, we see him in Balaam’s prophecy. This Christmas, let us see him in our worship, our carols, and our entire celebration of his birth.

Hebrews 10:8-10 “First he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them’ (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will.’ He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

Bulls and sheep and pigeons were just dumb animals. Their sacrifice made them just another piece of meat. Jesus was the God-man who came to do God’s will. That’s what God really wanted. He wanted someone to do what he says. He wanted someone to love unconditionally, even when people were nasty to him, just like he loves the world. He wanted someone to tell the truth, even when people don’t like it, because they need someone to stop them from destroying themselves. He wanted someone who understood that doing his will was a life of living for others and finding joy in taking care of their needs.

God wanted that someone to sacrifice his life for everyone else, not just to make a statement, not just to teach a lesson, not just to deliver a message about the horrors of sin or the richness of God’s grace and love. He wanted that someone to sacrifice his life for everyone else to make them holy, to remove their guilt, to pay for their sin.

Jesus was the God-man who came to do God’s will, “and by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Jesus came to be a sacrifice. Let’s not lose sight of this at Christmas in the midst of all the other messages and meanings of the holiday. From the moment he was born, Jesus’ purpose was to die.

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, our holiness is an accomplished fact. That is something we have trouble getting used to. If I were to ask you if you are perfect, I suspect that you would deny it. You know that you still sin. But you truly are perfect right now. You are a saint. You are holy, not because you have stopped committing sins, but because every one of those sins was forgiven when Jesus let his body become the sacrifice that satisfied God’s justice. We are God’s holy people, now, because Jesus was the effective sacrifice God wanted for us all.

What do you want for Christmas? If the answer has mostly to do with electronics, toys, clothes, or even a new Lexus with a big bow on the top, you are aiming too low. God wants you to have what he wants for Christmas: the peace and holiness of a Savior who sacrifices his life for you. It’s what he’s giving again this year.

Hebrews 10:5 “Therefore, when Christ came into the world he said: ‘Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am– it is written about me in the scroll– I have come to do your will, O God.’ First he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them’ (although the law required them to be made).”

It has become one of the standard questions of the season. In fact, considering all the emphasis on presents and gift-giving, it captures the secular view of Christmas quite well: “What do you want for Christmas?” A few altruistic people may rise above their personal desires and answer something like, “World peace” or “An end to hunger.” A few well-to-do people will decline the offer and insist, “I don’t really need anything.” But most of us are happy to indulge the questioner with a list of some sort to make their holiday shopping a little less difficult.

What if we were to take that question and address it to the ultimate gift-giver? What if we were to ask God, “What do you want for Christmas?” The author of the book of Hebrews uses another Scripture text to explain one thing God explicitly doesn’t want for Christmas. He quotes the words of Psalm 40. “Therefore, when Christ came into the world (that’s Christmas, isn’t it) he said: ‘Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased.”

Perhaps it seems strange that God wouldn’t want the very sacrifices he had commanded. Sacrifices occupied such a large part of Old Testament worship life. Cain killed his brother because he was jealous that God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice of sheep. God commanded Abraham to offer his son Isaac, then he substituted a ram for the sacrifice to spare the boy. The law of Moses required sacrifices to be made in response to all sorts of events in life: child birth, harvests, healing from disease. Sacrifices had to be offered after people committed certain sins. Animal sacrifice belonged to each national holiday. On a daily basis priests presented morning and evening sacrifices at the temple. The blood of animals flowed like a river from the temple, all at God’s command. If God commanded all this killing, how could he not desire it?

For you and me, perhaps something seems stranger still. Why did God order all these sacrifices in the first place? They seem so foreign to the clean and sanitary worship we experience. We come to worship to hear God loves us, to sing our thankfulness, to ask for his help, to grow in our understanding of his will. You think the babies sometimes get noisy at church? How about the commotion of sheep and calves and bird cages? You think it can get a little stuffy if an air conditioner isn’t keeping up? Imagine the smell of farm animals butchered by sweaty priests.  For people who demand worship that’s relevant, music we like, and a message we can understand, we might wonder what the Lord hoped to accomplish.

It’s not as though he needed the sacrifices for himself. “I have no need for a bull from your stall or goats from your pens…If I were hungry, I would not tell you….Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” (Psalm 50:9, 12, 13). It’s not as though God found some sort of morbid pleasure in seeing all these dear animals that he himself had created die. “The multitude of your sacrifices– what are they to me?” says the LORD.  “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”

God demanded sacrifices he did not desire, and offerings that did not please him, not for himself but for the benefit of his people. The constant killing delivered an unmistakable message. It impressed on them the utter horror of sin. Think that sin is no big deal? Each sacrifice repeated the mantra: “The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death.” They had on their hands the blood of the animals that showed them what should have happened to them. As the author of Hebrews says earlier, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.”

But in that same sacrifice, there was also an unmistakable message of God’s love and forgiveness. Every sacrifice was a reminder that I, the real sinner, have been spared. Every sacrifice was an example of God treating me better than I deserve. I can rejoice to be alive, and enjoying another day of God’s goodness and mercy, unlike this animal whose life has just ended at my hands.

The sacrifices didn’t serve God. They served his people. But he desired their end because Jesus came with a better sacrifice for us all.

Isaiah 35:8-10 “And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads, Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

We are all on a journey home. A room is reserved there already. A place has been set at the table. Jesus is holding our spot. But we aren’t there yet.

There is only one way there. Isaiah calls it “the Way of Holiness.” Don’t misunderstand the title. The holiness doesn’t come from us. Christ made this way, and he made it holy, when he came the first time. His cleansing blood spilled down from the cross erasing sins and washing souls and giving the whole world a bath in the forgiving grace of God. Those on the highway are the people who make this their holiness, this their way home. They are the people who have traded their sin for Christ’s holiness by faith. They are no longer trying to find their way by their own tainted works. They have given up on trying to pay their own way. That is why Isaiah can say that the unclean and wicked fools won’t be making any trips on this road.

The road, the way, ends in more joy than we could ever have imagined, more than we might even believe is possible: “No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads, Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” That is much more than optimism, idealism, good possibilities. That is God’s good promise. He offers more than the prospect of good things to come in spite of the bad things and the sad things today. These things will be: no dangers, no obstacles, only the Lord’s redeemed, making their way home.

This way home, the Way of Holiness, the road to Zion ends in songs, and gladness, and joy unspoiled by today’s sorrow or sighs. It brings us all the way to the realization, the fulfillment. Longing is replaced by living. Hoping is replaced by having. Christ coming has become Christ here.

But today, we wait. And we believe. And we are confident, because we know that he will come.

Isaiah 35:5-6 “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a dear, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.”

Jesus gave the world a taste of his wonder-working changes when he came the first time. Remember what he told John the Baptist’s disciples to assure them he really was the Christ? “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” I don’t think I need to go into a lengthy review of Jesus’ ministry with you to know what he was talking about.

We may not live in such an age of miracles today. I’m not saying that no one ever experiences a recovery that defies medical explanation. You may know of examples yourselves. But what we see rarely, if ever, matches the frequency and drama of the miracles Jesus performed. CPR and medical procedures may bring a person back who flat lines in the emergency room, but I know of no credible accounts of funerals interrupted when the man in the casket wakes up and joins the people gathered to grieve him. Jesus made just that happen when the city of Nain was carrying the widow’s son out to bury him, or when he brought Lazarus out of his tomb alive four days after his death.

Imagine the scene when Jesus comes again, and entire cemeteries are coming back to life! Imagine your own life with no prescriptions, no handicaps, no painful injuries, no contacts or eyeglasses, no hair falling out where it does belong or growing where it doesn’t, no “battle of the bulge,” no physical imperfections of any sort. Christ’s coming fills us with anticipation because of the changes he makes to our bodies and lives.

Those changes go along with the changes he makes in our living arrangements: “Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.” Isaiah is painting a picture of course. It is a picture of a lifeless desert being transformed into a lush and living oasis. An old favorite hymn sings about the difference between the place where we live now, and the place we’ll live when Christ comes: “I’m but a stranger here. Heaven is my home. Earth’s but a desert drear. Heaven is my home.”

That’s not to say the world in which we now live has no beauty. That is not to deny that God has been incredibly gracious in the way this earth takes care of our present needs. But compared to the way it once was, the way it should be, and the home we’ll have when Christ comes? It’s a desert. That’s why Christ’s coming fills us with eager expectations, because of the change he will make to our living arrangements.

Isaiah 35:3-4 “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”

Does the world sometimes seem like a scary place? Chances are you either find climate change a little frightening, or you find the measures world leaders intend to take to combat it a little frightening. Either you are worried about what will happen if the candidate from one party gets elected, or you are worried if the candidate from the other party gets elected. Could I be a victim in a mass shooting? Or will they take my 2^nd Amendment rights away?

For God’s people, there has always been a greater spiritual fear about what is going to happen to my faith. How much longer will my faith be tolerated in a world that thinks my beliefs are foolish at best, dangerous and hurtful at worst? The details may have been different, but Isaiah’s people dealt with this, too. How much longer will I have anyone else who shares my faith? With all the challenges, how much longer can I hold onto my faith myself? It’s enough to give people weak hands, shaky knees, and fearful hearts, to borrow Isaiah’s picture.

Christ’s coming fills us with optimism, because Isaiah says: “your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.” Now if we wanted Jesus to come just because he was going to make our enemies pay–that irritating ex-spouse who continues to be a thorn in the flesh, or the teacher who decided he didn’t like me from the moment I stepped into his classroom, or the bully at school or the obnoxious coworker or the inconsiderate next-door neighbor– then we have a sub-Christian attitude. The prophet isn’t encouraging us to be bloodthirsty people bent on revenge. That kind of sinful attitude should make us fear Christ’s coming rather than welcome it.

At the same time, salvation and condemnation, judgment and deliverance are always flip sides of the same coin. In order to save his people God has to defeat their enemies. It is a perfectly Christian thing for us to want God’s enemies to lose. Look at the great rescue stories of the Bible. Saving his people meant that God sent plagues on Egypt and drowned their army in the Red Sea, let David kill Goliath, let Daniel’s enemies be eaten by the same lions that took a pass on eating Daniel, and enabled queen Esther to arrange for wicked Haman to be hanged before he could carry out his genocidal plot against the Jews.

When Christ came the first time, saving his people meant that God dealt vengeance and retribution to the whole human race for its sins, but he let that death and hell fall on Jesus on the cross, in our place. It meant that God crushed the Devil and destroyed his power, so that we his people could go free.

When Christ came to you personally, individually, to call you to faith in the waters of your baptism, or in the preaching of his word, there was a part of you and me that died under God’s judgment so that we could be saved. Like Paul writes to the Romans: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin–because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”

Now we wait for Christ to come one last time, and once again he is coming to save us. We should expect that his methods aren’t going to change. The enemies of the gospel can declare that we live in a “post-Christian” era, Christianity isn’t relevant anymore, and Christians need to leave their faith behind in the public square. They can look the other way when Christians in other parts of the world are murdered and raped, their churches burned, and their children sold as slaves. We still face the future with an optimism that borders on irrationality. God has allowed us to take a peek at the last chapter of human history. We have skipped ahead, and we know how the story ends. Christ is coming to judge the world, and that means he is coming to save his people. We have reason to face the future with hope.

Isaiah 64:1-2 “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes fire to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!”

There were two kinds of enemies Isaiah had in mind, but only one of them really looked the part. First, there were those on the outside. By Isaiah’s time, the nation of Judah had become the skinny, nerdy kid on the block in the Middle East. They kept getting run over by big bullies on every side. Most recently the Assyrians had bloodied their nose and stolen their lunch money. The Babylonians were waiting in the wings for their turn to shake them down.

The bigger problem was the enemy on the inside. God’s own people had lost their sense of need for God. It almost seemed to the prophet as if the Lord wanted it this way: “Why, O Lord, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?” He asks near the end of the previous chapter. “Why do you make us put out the unwelcome mat?” Isaiah could look around at many of his fellow Israelites, who had stopped going to the temple, who had adopted sinful and selfish lifestyles, and wonder, “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

He also knew where to turn. “Rend the heavens and come down.” He doesn’t ask the Lord to make a sneak attack. He isn’t looking for God to do his thing in the background. He wants him to tear through the wall that separates his world from ours. He wants more than a demonstration of God’s power. He wants a supernatural demonstration of God’s power, the kind that will silence the Bible deniers and the Bible skeptics.

You see, the utter materialist, who believes the only things that are real are the things you can touch and see, isn’t a recent development. “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,’” David writes in the psalms. They had them thousands of years ago, too.

Nor are we immune to their way of thinking. When God delays, when he doesn’t come to fix things, we wonder. When the people with all the power, all the money, and all the success seem to be the people with no religion, we entertain secret thoughts, “Maybe we’ve got it wrong, and they’ve got it right. Maybe I’m just wasting my time with Christianity and religion. If you can’t beat them, join them!”

But if God would make a dramatic entrance, if he would come crashing through the barrier that keeps us from seeing the spiritual world and spiritual forces all around us, that would silence the mockers and the skeptics and the persecutors, and it would help to settle our own doubts, too.

That would change things, and do it quickly. “As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you.” You see what Isaiah is asking for? He wants God to set off earthquakes with his entrance, and he wants the enemies of God’s people to quake as well. He wants the Lord to make his name known to his enemies, names like The Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, the Judge of heaven and earth. In Isaiah’s day the enemies would have been nations such as Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Edom and Moab. In our day the enemy might be professors on hundreds of college campuses who make no secret of their agenda to destroy the faith of incoming students, or the purveyors of filth, obscenity, and immorality in what we loosely refer to as the entertainment industry. “Make them shake, Lord,” Isaiah prays. “Come, and make your name known to your enemies.”

Is that a godly prayer? Is it wrong to want this, much less ask for it? If all we care about is settling a score; if all that concerns us is that they made us suffer, so they should suffer, too, then we don’t have a prayer here. We have a temper tantrum. It is something short of a godly desire. It is an attitude for which we need to repent.

But we can’t want the enemies of God to win! The Lord is a just God, which means that he is against sin in all its forms. If he weren’t, if he tolerated sin and just let it go, he would not be good. He would be a god whom we could neither trust nor respect.

It is only right that the Lord come and put a stop to those who murder the bodies of his people, and even more so those whose messages murder their souls. It is not mere selfishness and vengefulness that leads God’s people to want the Lord to come down and execute justice, to make his name known to his enemies. It is a desire to defend and protect God’s faithful children, so we join with Isaiah in making this our urgent prayer: “Come!”