Christmas

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Christmas
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: December 24 & 24, 2001

TEXT: Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7 “ . . . and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Luke 2:1-20 – “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”


ISSUE: There are many startling reversals in the story of Jesus. The first are last and the last first. Jesus expresses the way God thinks, not the way man thinks. There is a startling new understanding of the coming Messiah as the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, who is born in a manger wrapped in swaddling cloths. Jesus challenges the forces and powers of the world with the great simplicity of love. He makes us rethink what is truly important in our lives. Coming to the world like we are, he intends to make us like himself. We shall make room for him.
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“For a child has been born for us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” These are the words of the prophet Isaiah, familiar to us at the Christmas season. These words are believed to have originally been written at the end of a dreadfully oppressive regime in Judah, the rule of the Assyrian ruler, Tiglath-pileser. They are a coronation poem or song for the coming of a new king in the hope of his bringing about a new age of peace and justice.
The king would not literally have been a child, but a new king, a new start, and new hope for an oppressed people.
The Wonderful Counselor would be a person who was skilled with the political skills of governing and leading the nation wisely.
A Mighty God, or mighty in God, speaks of a divine warrior, or an invincible warrior of the oppressed.
An Everlasting Father would be a person who was an unfailing source of protection and love, like any good father.
A Prince of peace is a controller of his subjects that brings a state of well-being and prosperity, or at least that which offers the best of all things for his people.
The coronation poem is one of great hope and expectation. Who Isaiah was referring to we cannot be sure. But the early Christian Community saw in the coronation anthem the epitome of Jesus. But how can the child laid in the manger really be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace?
For the early Christian Community Jesus’ infancy was not literally important. Luke’s beautiful birth narrative story is really a poem itself that expresses in the way an overture does in an opera the themes of what is to come. The infant child is the sign of new hope and new beginning. Shepherds are his heralds, and angels his welcoming chorus. The world will see in his seeming frailty and subtlety something quite grand.
The ministry and teaching is one of change, turn around, that gets the attention of all of his followers. He is the great reversal for the world, or the way of great repentance, change. Jesus’ parables are often stories with shocking endings that people don’t expect:
The workers in the vineyard who have worked all day long get the same pay that those who came at the last minute receive.
The prodigal son who wastes his father’s living gets forgiveness, and his good brother gets a lecture to be compassionate and to be changed himself.
The blessed, and the most honorable are the poor, not those who have more than their share, but who in fact do the sharing.
Those who mourn are the blessed and honorable, who shall be comforted, not those happy but insensitive folk.
The lepers and the outcasts, the cursed, are the folk who get restored.
The parable of the scoundrel who has been ripping off his master receives congratulations for his skillfulness.
The lame and paralyzed, the oppressed walk once again. The deaf hear the love of God spoken; blind receive new insight into the wonder of God. The speechless, those without voice or power are given new hope. All that has been cast down is being raised up, and all that are lost are being found.
The throne of the Lord is a cross, and his crown is an entanglement of thorns. Yet in him is the hope of the world.
He is the Wonderful Counselor with the political skills that challenge the politics and the power structures of the world. He is Mighty God, the mighty warrior champion of the poor, and the oppressed, and who demands justice. He is the Everlasting Father providing undeserved grace and love for his wayward sons and daughters. He is the Prince of Peace who intends to bring well-being, comfort, and the best of all possible worlds for his creation. He is the Lord who wants our attention, and calls us into his service as faithful, loyal subjects.
Our world knows the oppression of powerful and cruel regimes. We have seen the brutality and the cruelty that can be inflicted on human beings. Many people around this world this evening need comforting and justice. Many folk mourn. Many people are hungry, abandoned, orphaned all around the world. The world does need a savior, and a Lord of Lords and a King over all Kings and potentates who is a Wonderful Counselor, A Mighty God, and Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.
This Christmas evening we celebrate the fact that God in the person of Jesus Christ has and does come among us. We sing the coronation hymn that the King of Love and the Prince of Peace is with us, and that His Kingdom shall have no end. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Tonight the light shines in the darkness.