So in our December messages we’ve been talking about all
these Old Testament prophecies about the coming of Jesus. We talked about how the Savior was going to
be born of a virgin, we talked about how he would be born in Bethlehem, and we
talked about how he would be a descendant of King David. And, of course, we talked about how each one
of those prophecies came true.
But if we think about it, none of those prophecies, in
and of themselves, is all that important.
I mean, yes, it was helpful to know where the Savior would be born, and
it was important to people that he be a descendant of King David, the greatest
king ever. And this deal about the
virgin birth, well, that was certainly cool.
That’d be a pretty sure sign that God had to be involved here.
But the thing about all that is that all of it, even
added together, only tells us so much.
It tells us that someone is going to be born, and that it’s going to be
someone special. But none of it tells us
anything about the person himself. Who
is this Savior going to be? What’s this
Savior going to do? Well, save us, I
suppose, that’s why he’s called a savior, but how? How are we going to be saved? What does it even mean to say we’re going to
be saved? Saved from what?
And so today, that’s what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about the prophecy of how
the Savior actually is the Savior.
Our reading
from Isaiah today tells us. The Savior
is going to lead us out of the darkness and into the light. The Savior is going to take away our burdens,
shatter them. The Savior will govern
over everyone and bring peace. And there
will be no end to his governing or to the peace he’s going to bring. He will reign with justice and righteousness
forever.
And the people heard of Israel heard that, and no one had
a clue what it really meant. You cannot
blame them, really. After all, the only
frame of reference they had for interpreting this was human rulers and human
governments. They heard about a person
who was going to reign on David’s throne, a person who would govern and bring
justice and peace, and they naturally assumed this was someone who was going to
take over on earth. They assumed this
would be an earthly king who would take over, wipe out the bad guys, put Israel
back in control of the Promised Land, and make everything the way it should be
on earth.
But there’s more to that assumption than a mistake
because of their frame of reference. An
earthly Savior was not just the kind of Savior they expected, it was the kind
of Savior they wanted. And again, it’s
hard to blame them. We talked last week
about how all these prophecies of Jesus came when the Nation of Israel was in
trouble, about to be taken over by a foreign country or to be sent into exile
or something. When you’re in that kind
of trouble, what do you want? What do
you look for? You look for some kind of
a leader who can save you, someone who can take care of you. You look for someone who can defeat the
enemy, put things right, and solve all your problems, someone who will usher in
a new Golden Age of prosperity and peace and justice. That’s what the people of Israel wanted the
Savior to be.
And sometimes, that’s still what we want the Savior to
be. We look at our Nation, and it seems
like it’s in trouble, too. I don’t mean
this as a partisan political statement.
I have lots of friends on both the left and the right, and it seems like
the one thing they all agree on is that the nation is in trouble. They may disagree about what the trouble is
or what the solutions are, but they all agree that we’re in trouble.
And a lot of times, what we really want is a Savior to
come along and take care of the trouble.
We want a Savior, either from the left or from the right, who will come
along and defeat the enemy, whoever we think the enemy happens to be. We want someone who can make everything
right, someone who can solve all the problems and user in a new Golden Age of
prosperity and peace and justice for our country. Sometimes that’s who we want our Savior to
be, too.
But that’s not who the Savior is. At least not now. The Bible tells us that Jesus is going to
come again, and at that point there will be a day of judgment. There will, eventually, be the coming of the new
earth and the new Jerusalem and everything will be as it should be. The Savior will do that, someday. But not now.
For right now, that’s not who the Savior is.
When Jesus came, he was not who the people of Israel
assumed he would be. And he was not who
the people of Israel wanted him to be.
And so, when he came, a lot of the people of Israel missed it. They looked somewhere else for the Savior,
not even noticing that the Savior they had been looking for all these centuries
was right there with them. That’s a
really sad thing, when you think about it.
But you know, even the people who were there with Jesus,
and recognized him as the Savior, missed it in a way, too. Because even though they believed in Jesus as
the Savior, they still were trying to make Jesus into the Savior they wanted
him to be, rather than the Savior he was.
They kept trying to make him fight, to make him take power. James and John asked Jesus to seat them at
his right and left when he took control.
When Jesus told his disciples that he was about to be arrested, the
disciples looked around for swords to fight back with. Some people think one of the reasons Judas
betrayed Jesus was to try to force Jesus to use his power to defeat their
enemies and take power on earth. They kept
trying to make Jesus into the Savior they wanted him to be, rather than the
Savior he came to be, the Savior he was.
And we still, too often, try to make Jesus into the
Savior we want him to be, rather than the Savior he came to be. We want Jesus to take power on earth, to make
everything the way we think it’s supposed to be. But that’s not who Jesus is. That’s who Satan wanted him to be. Remember, that was the biggest temptation
Jesus faced in the wilderness, the temptation to take power on earth. And Jesus refused.
Jesus could’ve
taken power that way. Jesus could’ve
raised an army, taken power, and ruled on earth. Or, really, Jesus would not have needed to
raise an army. He probably could’ve just
commanded and everyone would’ve had no choice but to obey. But if he had done that, Jesus would’ve taken
power by brute force. And that’s not the
kind of Savior Jesus is.
I think one of reasons why that’s not the kind of Savior
Jesus is, is that the most important thing to Jesus is love. Jesus came to earth and lived among us out of
love. Jesus said the most important
commandments are to love God and love others.
Jesus died for the forgiveness out of sins. Jesus is a Savior of love.
And brute force cannot result in love. It can result in fear. It can result in obedience. But it cannot result in love. In fact, it results in the exact
opposite. We cannot love someone we
fear. And when we’re forced to do things
against our will and without choice, we usually will come to resent whoever it
is that’s forcing us to do it. And the
first chance we get, we rebel. Brute
force can require obedience, but it cannot result in love.
Jesus is the Prince of Peace. That’s what Isaiah called him, and that’s
what he was and what he is. And brute
force cannot result in peace. Only love
can.
So that’s how
Jesus takes power—through love. Jesus
takes power through loving us. Jesus
takes power by loving us so much that he died so our sins would be
forgiven. And Jesus takes power when we
open our hearts to him. Jesus takes
power when the Holy Spirit fills our hearts.
Jesus takes power when we feel his love and return his love and share
his love with others.
The Savior who
came was not the Savior the people of Israel wanted. And sometimes he’s not the Savior we want,
either. He’s better. He’s not a Savior through the power of
force. He’s a Savior through the power
of love. And there will never be
anything stronger than the power of love.
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