Jeremiah 33:16 “In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord our Righteousness.”

Judah’s real problem was never so much the hostile neighbors who kept invading–the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians. They made life miserable, but the problem ran deeper.

Their problem wasn’t even so much in their own wicked kings. People like to blame bad politicians when things go wrong. But nobody put a gun to the citizen’s heads and made them imitate their leaders. They still had God’s prophets to teach them what was right. They knew better.

Israel’s real problem lay in their own rebellious souls. They had been resisting God’s ways from the days of Moses. They were quick to forget his goodness. They were quick to turn to the disgusting practices of the gods of their neighbors. In the end they had no one to blame for their misery, their spiritual bankruptcy, or the judgments God visited on them but themselves.

We’re not so different. We would like to believe that the blame for our misery rests on someone else’s shoulders. We wouldn’t be so grumpy if others treated us better. We would behave ourselves if it weren’t for the terrible influence of our peers, or the failure of our parents to nurture us in a more loving and godly way.

But in the end, it’s our life. Our reactions are our reactions. Our sins are our sins, and we will personally own the consequences, too.

That is why this picture of days to come is such great news. Jeremiah couches God’s promise in pictures the people of his day would understand, but he is describing a salvation that’s spiritual. “Judah will be saved.” Jesus’ coming has saved us, not from foreign powers, but from guilt and distress over our sin. Here’s the picture wrapped in Jeremiah’s Hebrew: We no longer must live like a city under siege, squeezed and choked until we are spiritually starving to death.  Our consciences no longer bombard us with guilt; Satan can’t torture us with fear. We are free from all that, free to live and breathe, free to trust God and love him, with no enemy and no threats anywhere to be seen. This is what it is like to live under this King.

“Jerusalem will live in safety.” Here is the second picture: Our coming King faithfully protects us. Death has been arrested, found guilty, and securely locked away in prison. Only a faint resemblance of it still goes free–not to murder us, but to escort us to the door of a new home. There we are safe and secure with the rest of God’s family around us. Whether we are still on our journey home, or whether we have reached our final destination, we are safe under our new King’s rule.

This is all true because the King has dressed us up to look like himself. “This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord our Righteousness.” In an earlier chapter of Jeremiah, “The Lord our Righteousness” is a name given to Jesus (23:6). Here the “it” to which the name refers is the people of God represented by Judah and Jerusalem.

Either way, the name tells the story: Our Lord Jesus has given us his righteousness–the righteousness of his life, and the righteousness of his death. We wear it as our own in place of the rags of our sin. He has come not only to be near us. He traded identities with us, and dressed in his righteousness we have nothing to fear. Our sin is removed, replaced. Our salvation is sure. We are safe in the royal robes of our King.

Jeremiah 33:15 “In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.”

There are many miracles surrounding the birth of our Savior. We will marvel again at the faith of Mary and Joseph, the virgin birth, the appearance of angels, miraculous stars. Jeremiah mentions one here that gets little attention most Christmas seasons. We are familiar with the picture of Jesus as the Branch growing from David’s line. We are less familiar with the striking wonder of God this proclaims.

Jeremiah was prophesying at the time of the last Jewish King from David’s line to rule over an independent Jerusalem. That king was Zedekiah. He was ruling in Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon laid siege to the city, broke through its walls, and captured him while he was trying to flee to the East. Nebuchadnezzar made Zedekiah watch while each of his sons was killed in front of him, then his friends and advisors. Then Nebuchadnezzar put out Zedekiah’s eyes. The last thing King Zedekiah ever saw was the death of his children and his friends.

This is why the Bible refers to David’s line as a stump. For many it must have appeared as though the family of David, and the promises of a great Savior King from it, had been cut off. The family of David, his royal dynasty, was dead. Nebuchadnezzar made it nothing but a lifeless stump. If this were the history of any other nation or dynasty, the story ends here. And if the story ends here, then we lose…everything.

But underneath the surface there was life left in that royal line. Survivors from David’s family carried on the name and the promises. Among the many miracles at Christmas is the miraculous life God gives to the royal family of David. He kept a seed of life alive in that family through exile in a foreign land and hundreds of years in obscurity. Jesus is the new royal Branch who sprouted and grew to become our Savior.

Jeremiah 33:14 “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promises I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.’”

To many people, the very idea of religion seems dry and unexciting. Since God isn’t someone we visibly encounter every day, he can seem distant. More and more people are turning to a do-it-yourself spirituality and avoiding the organized religions, denominations, and churches. That kind of spirituality focuses less on the person of God. It is more concerned with developing a sense of right and wrong and becoming a kinder, more loving person.

Perhaps you have found a similar reaction within yourself. Sometimes the Christian faith doesn’t seem inpiring or uplifting. It feels more like a set of theoretical propositions. The preaching, the teaching, even the music, all seem dry and unexciting.

Is it possible we have forgotten? Our God is the God who steps through the door between heaven and earth to become part of our world, part of our lives, part of our times. He does it time and time again. Our Christian faith is about more than detailed standards for human behavior. God is not a divine quality control inspector. He is the God who rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty in the story of our lives.

“The days are coming when I will fulfill the gracious promises I made…” he says. Christmas, and just about every other Christian holiday, doesn’t celebrate an idea. It celebrates an event, a promise kept, a day when God came and did wonderful, gracious things for us. Maybe it happened a long time ago, but we can still live in the excitement that God was here. He was here for us, and he was here doing amazing things to give us his grace.

Nor is he finished keeping such promises to his people. He hasn’t left us, but he still steps through that door between heaven and earth. He comes to us. We know this if we tune our ears to hear his voice in his Word. We experience this when we grasp his promise to be with us in his supper. He promises the days are coming when he will step through that door between heaven and earth one last time, not in obscurity as he did at his birth; not under cover of word, water, or wine; but in glory to lead us through that same door from earth to heaven.

He can seem agonizingly slow in keeping these promises. Jeremiah lived about 600 B.C. At his time these promises “to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah” were already hundreds of years old. The house of Israel barely even existed. Most of its people were taken away to exile a century earlier and never returned. It would be 600 more years before the things Jeremiah promised came to fulfillment.

We don’t do so well when we have to wait long times for things, do we. When our parents told us we couldn’t have anything to eat until supper, when we had to wait our place in line for some event, even 10 or 15 minute delays seemed unbearable to us as children. When someone we love is in surgery and the surgery goes long, we worry and expect the worst. Waiting drains our hope and tests our faith. That isn’t because things tend to take a negative turn when they take a long time. Slow is often better, but we are short on patience.

Abraham and Sarah struggled to wait the decades God took to give them a child. King Saul couldn’t wait a few days for Samuel to come and offer a sacrifice. The children of Israel grumbled when the Lord made them wait for food or water in the wilderness. We get tired of waiting for God to answer our prayers. God’s people had been waiting for the promised Savior to appear since the beginning of time. By Jeremiah’s day many of them had lost interest or found some other religion to follow.

But God has kept this gracious promise. The Savior he promised has come.  Christmas reassures us that God will keep every good promise he has made to us in his own good time.

Isaiah 9:6 “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…Prince of Peace.”

We have every reason to respect and love Jesus as our Counselor, Mighty Hero, and Everlasting Father.  In the end, we also bow to him as King. Jesus is royalty. He was the King of Israel as rightful heir and descendant of King David. But more importantly, he is the King of kings. He reigns as King of the universe, the Son and rightful heir of God the Father in heaven.

But this King does not come to bow our heads in terror, or enslave us in servile fear. His name is the Prince of Peace. His peace is not the kind the world so desperately seeks: peace from wars, relief from crime and violence. He didn’t come to make it possible to build a kind of counterfeit heaven on earth. Many times Jesus himself has been the cause of conflict, not just between nations, but even between individual members or our earthly families. He predicted it would be this way.

None of this contradicts the fact that he is the Prince of Peace, however. He came to bring peace in the BIG war, the one between you and me and our God. When we turned against God with our sin, he had no choice but to turn against us with his judgment. When people are at war with God, there is no peace.

But Jesus has turned God’s judgment away. He has made our sin invisible to God by his death in our place. He has given us real peace with him by leading us back to faith. Our consciences can rest. We don’t need to live our lives constantly looking over our shoulders to see if today God is coming to get us. We may not always be safe in an earthly sense, but we have peace.

Our lives may not be free from struggles with other people, free from struggles with temptation, free from struggles to make it through another day, but God’s peace stretches over us in the middle of these struggles. When we have peace with him, our life is whole. God grants us a sense of security, a sense of contentment even when outwardly our lives are a total disaster. This is the peace that comes with faith.

We possess true peace flowing beneath the rushing adrenalin, the sweating anxiety, the streaming tears, and the overwhelming grief of our messed up existence here. It’s the gift Jesus brings us because he is our Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6 “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… Everlasting Father….”

We’re not used to hearing the name “Father” applied to Jesus. Scripture teaches us to know him as the “Son of the Father.” In other places the Bible refers to Jesus as our brother. “Father” sounds foreign to our ears when we are speaking of the second person of the Trinity. Isaiah isn’t confusing the Father and the Son in this description. They remain distinct, and their relationship unchanged. Rather, he is illustrating important features of the way Jesus relates to you and me.

A few moments consideration will reveal what a fitting name Father is for him in relation to us. A father gives life to his children. Children trace their origin back to their parents. Jesus has given us spiritual life. He made it possible for us by giving his life for our sins. Then he made it happen to us by sending us his word and his Holy Spirit. We would have no spiritual existence if he were not our spiritual Father.

He also sustains our spiritual life just like a Father provides for the needs of his family. It is Jesus himself who continues to meet us in his word. He continues to breathe life into us there as he confronts our sin and promises us his grace. He feeds the family with his own body and blood at the Lord’s Supper. The forgiveness it pronounces provides just the nourishment our faith needs. He hasn’t left us here as orphans. He takes care of our spiritual needs.

In our day fatherhood has gotten a bad name. Many fathers abandon their responsibilities. They fail to nurture and provide for their families. Human fathers may forget (or just don’t care) that there is more to fatherhood than begetting children.

But Jesus will never be a “dead beat dad.” He is the Everlasting Father, and his loving nurture and care for us will never end.

Isaiah 9:6 “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…Mighty God…”

Do you know what Isaiah is really saying about Jesus when he calls him our MIGHTY God? He is saying that Jesus is our hero!

The prophet does not mean that Jesus is merely someone for whom we have a great deal of respect, like our favorite celebrity, president, or sports star. This kind of hero was a mighty man and deliverer such as Samson, whom God used as a one-man army; or David, who killed the giant Goliath. From time to time God gave his Old Testament people such “mighty men,” warrior heroes. They did the work of many soldiers. They inspired entire armies to fight to victory. The Lord used them to protect his chosen people from their enemies. That is what Isaiah means when he calls the coming Christ “Mighty.”

If Jesus is such a mighty warrior for us, such a hero, that suggests something about us, too. We would not need him to be so mighty, if we were not so weak. That isn’t something we like to admit. We prefer to picture ourselves as strong, independent, self-sufficient types. We may teach our children to sing Jesus Loves Me This I Know, and the humble self-description it confesses: “Little ones to him belong, they are weak, but he is strong.” That doesn’t mean we like to think of ourselves that way.

However, that confession is just as true of us as it is of our children. Spiritually, we are all little ones. We are weak-willed when it comes to temptation. We give in to it often and easily.

Our love for God is weak. We have trouble maintaining our zeal and excitement for his work. It is not uncommon to feel as though the Lord, his word, and his work are getting in the way of what we really love: taking care of ourselves and indulging our personal pleasures.

Truth be told, left alone against the devil and his tricks, we are little more than his playthings. When he tires of playing with us, he may devour us whole, like the cat who finished playing with the mouse he caught and now is ready for dinner.

What we need is a hero, a mighty warrior, a great champion who will fight our battles and win. That is exactly what Jesus came to be. That is what he did. With his perfect life, he resisted temptation. He took Satan’s best shot and he didn’t even flinch. When he gave up his life in death, it wasn’t a defeat. His death crushed the enemy, set us free from sin and death, and destroyed the devil’s power. With Jesus on our side, they don’t push us around anymore.

Do you know what is even more encouraging? Our Hero is not just a mighty man. He is the Mighty God. Psalm 146 warns us, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save…Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” That is exactly the help and hope God gives in the child and son of Isaiah’s prophecy. He is the Mighty God, and that makes us confident he is the Hero who can help and deliver us.

Isaiah 9:6 “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…”

When Jesus speaks to us, his words are “wonderful.” By “wonderful” the prophet means more than “very good,” or “great,” or even “nice.” He means that Jesus and his words are actually “full of wonder.” When Jesus speaks to us, his words fill us with amazement. We can hardly believe what he is saying–our eyes open wide, our jaws hit the floor–so astounding are the things he has to say.

Think of how people reacted to him during his earthly ministry. The crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught like one who had authority, and not as the teachers of the law. Jesus’ enemies were amazed at his words when he escaped the traps they had set for him. His own disciples were amazed when he told them how hard it is for the rich to enter heaven, or when he showed them that he knew more about catching fish than they did.

Are we amazed by Jesus’ words? Even much of the Christian church seems set on softening God’s law, toning down his perfectly holy standards so that we can justify ourselves. We want to consider ourselves “good people.” Are we amazed when Jesus reveals to us that even the most secret and momentary lusts or resentments are damning sin? On the other hand, does it fill us with wonder–just knock our socks off–when he has a promise of God’s love, a word of forgiveness, an assurance of God’s continuing grace for wicked rascals like me and you, as he did for the prostitutes, the cheats, and the thieves, after he has led us to repentance?

This is what it means that Jesus is our “Wonderful Counselor:” his words are so unique, so perfectly true, so deeply caring and gracious that they simply overwhelm us with the wonder of what they tell us.

And note that the prophet does not call Jesus our teacher, our preacher, or our prophet here (though he certainly is all these things). Isaiah specifically identifies him as our Counselor. A Counselor is someone whom we have come to trust, someone in whom we know we can confide. A Counselor is someone who has taken a personal and individual interest in us, and his words are meant to apply to our unique and individual situation.

So it is with Jesus. He assures us, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” While his words have something to say to everyone, he wants us to be sure he intends every one of his words to be believed, treasured, and followed just by you. Our Savior has no ordinary name. He is our Wonderful Counselor. Perhaps we will want to hear what he has to say.

Romans 13:12b-14 “So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

When we get dressed, one thing has to come off before another goes on. Paul first describes the kind of life Christians shed as they strive to live a life of faith. Generally, it involves the “deeds of darkness.” Even our world recognizes certain behavior as so shameful it doesn’t belong in public. Crime takes place under the cover of night. So do many sexual sins.

But Paul is not addressing these words to the world around us. He is addressing them to Christians. He encourages us to behave decently. He knows that we are tempted, like anyone else, to indulge in the sins he lists. He starts with orgies and drunkenness. God does not forbid all use of alcoholic beverages. But Christians who understand this may be tempted to overlook drunkenness, or redefine what it means to be drunk. That leads to abusing Christian liberty. God calls us to wake up, to repent of such behavior as sin, to be prepared for Jesus’ return.

Next Paul warns of sexual immorality and debauchery (the word “orgies” in the previous pair actually comes from a Greek word suggesting abuse of alcohol more than misuse of sex). Many professing Christians no longer accept that sexual activity is limited to heterosexual marriage. Many more have become calloused to watching simulated sex on TV or in movies.  Does the screen somehow make it acceptable? Would we approve if the next door neighbors invited us over to watch?

To these sins the apostle adds dissensions and jealousy. Perhaps those seem like less serious offenses? We can become so accustomed to hurt, angry, or resentful feelings that we may begin to think of these as a normal and ordinary part of life. We don’t expect to be able to get along with everyone. We dismiss our own resentments as the natural result of incompatibilities.

But does that mean this is how it should be? Isn’t this still evidence of sin within us? And doesn’t all sin need to be dealt with in the same way–repentance, confession, and forgiveness? These “deeds of darkness” need to come off, too, if we want to be ready when Christ returns.

In their place, Paul urges us to wear the “armor of light.” This isn’t frilly or fancy clothing. We aren’t dressing up for an elegant party. We are at war. This is not the time to get comfortable. We need the armor our God provides.

Nothing can better protect us than to be wrapped in Christ himself. “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” How do we clothe ourselves with Jesus Christ? We are putting him on every time we put our faith in his gracious promises. He applies them to us in word or sacrament. “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Paul writes the Galatians. “For all of you who have been baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.”

And when I am clothed in him, then it is God who works in me both to will and to act according to his good pleasure. Then I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

God’s promises produce true faith. Faith will produce a true Christian life. Clothed like this, we are dressed and ready when our Lord Jesus returns.

Romans 13:11-12 “And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

You and I are living at an exciting time, if we would only wake up to realize it. Paul is bending over our sleepy souls and shaking our shoulders. Our salvation is near. To understand what Paul means by this, we need to understand that the Bible uses the term salvation in more than one way.

The apostle is not suggesting there was something incomplete about the saving work Jesus did when he came the first time. There is no secret stash of sins somewhere yet to be paid. There are no atoning sacrifices for us to perform. The words of John 3 still stand, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…” In the life and death of Jesus Christ, our salvation–our rescue from sin and death and hell– has been accomplished. By faith we already hold the deed to our own piece of heavenly real estate.

But it’s no secret that death still pursues us. Every flaw in our health, every pain in our bodies, reminds us that it is just a matter of time. Our lives aren’t models of heavenly perfection. A rich stew of sin simmers and boils just under the surface. We are still waiting for final deliverance from the world in which we now live.

This salvation is coming closer every day. What a night and day difference its arrival will make! Paul reminds us, “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.” Now we live in the night. Sin darkens our vision. So many things we consider real, and important, are passing dreams and fantasies. The institutions we rely on, the enemies with whom we battle, this created world which seems so solid and permanent–all of it will suddenly disappear when Jesus’ coming brings the dawn of a new day.

That day will make everything good and clear. Every trouble will end. God’s ways will be vindicated. Our Christian faith will prove itself the one thing we have of lasting value. The hard days of carrying our heavy burdens will be over. The everlasting holidays will begin. You and I have never experienced a bigger day in our lives.

Since the sky is already reddening in the east, now is the time to wake up and prepare. Paul encourages us to understand the present time. The signs of Jesus’ return are all visible for us to see. Upheaval plagues current events. The gospel is spreading far and near. Paul himself witnessed so much fulfillment of the signs Jesus gave that he believed his return was imminent almost 2000 years ago.

This is why “the hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.” We wouldn’t need the encouragement if many Christians weren’t spiritually drowsy. Take his warning to heart! Many believers resemble a person nodding off, barely awake, head bobbing as eyes flutter open and closed. Satan sings his spiritual lullaby to soothe us into the sleep of unbelief. He might croon the tune of earthly cares, desires, goals, pleasures, or worries. They all draw our attention from our spiritual needs. Faith begins to slip. The eternal sleep of unbelief follows.

The stress, distraction, and materialism which so surround Christmas can have the same sleepy effect on the soul. “Be careful,” Jesus warned, “or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.”

Jesus’ return is an occasion that demands we be properly prepared. It’s time to wake up!