This Week’s Sermon

 

~ December 15, 2024 (Contemporary Worship) ~
~ December 15, 2024 (Traditional Worship) ~

“A Little Child Shall Lead Them”

Isaiah 11:1-9, Luke 1:57-80
December 15, 2024

So, do you remember Zechariah?  He was the father of John the Baptist.  And in his story, in Luke chapter 1, he couldn’t speak for nine months because he doubted the word of the angel Gabriel.  You remember, he was told that he and his wife Elizabeth were going to have a baby, and he said, “How can this be?  I am old, and my wife is “advanced in years.”  (Wasn’t that a nice way of saying it, ladies?)

Well, today we have the story of what happened when that baby was born and Zechariah finally did speak.  And when he spoke, he really spoke!  Apparently he had a lot “bottled up” inside of him!  Think about it.  What would you say after not speaking for nine months?  I asked my Artificial Intelligence for funny things someone might say after nine months.  One of them was, “Sorry, I forgot what I was going to say.”  Another was, “I’ve been giving you a chance to miss me.  Did it work?”

Well, Zechariah had a lot to say!  And not only did he speak, he prophesied!  And I wonder if he had been thinking about these things all along, if maybe he came to believe what the angel said about this child!  “He will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before them in the spirit of Elijah, to make them ready for the Lord, a people prepared.”  That’s what Gabriel told him.

So Zechariah prophesied that day!  I want you to notice that his prophecy was in two parts.  First, he speaks about Jesus.  He said, “Blessed by the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.  He has raised up a horn of salvation for us, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets of old.”

That’s about Jesus.  And we read one of those “prophets of old” a few minutes ago.  We read from Isaiah 11, where he spoke about what has come to be known as “The Peaceful Kingdom.”  That’s the heading of what we read.  And I believe there was a famous painting of this by that title.  Isaiah said, “There shall come forth a root from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  And who was Jesse?  He was the father of (anybody?) king David!

Again, that’s one of Isaiah’s great prophecies about the Messiah.  And I’ve used the ending part of that as the title of my sermon.  “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.”

I think there are echoes of that prophecy in the words of Zechariah.  He spoke of the one who was to come, “and we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant and the oath which he sword to our father Abraham, to be delivered from the hand of our enemies, that we might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life.”

Of course, we also hear in those words the idea of the Messiah being a political deliverer.  Because remember, that’s what the people wanted, as we’ve often said before.  That’s all they knew.  That was their mindset.  They longed to have their own nation once again!

Well, the second part of Zechariah’s prophecy starts in verse 76, where he says, “And you O child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.”  That’s the prophecy about John, his new son.  And this is where “the peaceful kingdom” comes back into this.  Zechariah says that John will “give knowledge of salvation to the people, in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of God, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide their feet in the way of peace.”

Actually, “Peace” was the theme of our second Advent candle that we lit last week.  As I think about it now, maybe we should have switched them.  But this is ok, there’s a lot of “Joy” in these prophetic words as well.

So, I was thinking about “The peaceful Kingdom” this week.  I even put some little snippets of it on our sign!  But I kept thinking how hard it is to imagine or even picture that “peaceful kingdom” in the light of our world today.  Isaiah’s earlier words, that “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares” seems only a pipedream in our world! (Isaiah 2:4)  And I imagine it was hard for those people, too.  Yes, they were living under the “Pax Romano” – the “Roman peace.”  But as I said last week, that was only peace if you didn’t step out of line!

Those people longed for an end to all of that!  They longed for the things Zechariah prophesied about!  And they were amazed when they heard what was being said about the baby that was being dedicated that day!  And the prophesies in the Gospel would continue.  In a few weeks, we’ll look at what was said when the baby Jesus was brought in to be dedicated!  Once again, the people who were there at that time, were amazed at what was said!

As I think about all that, I hope we can “capture” some of that amazement again.  Because sometimes it’s not a matter that we disbelieve these stories, it’s that they get too routine.  We read them year after year, and they get somewhat mundane.  They lose their sense of wonder.  That’s something we have to recapture every year!  And I think that’s one of the most important things we have to do during this season of Advent!

Too often, we lose the amazement!  We lose the wonder!  Either that, or those things simply get drowned out.  The wonder and amazement get buried under the sheer weight of the reindeer, and trees, and elves, and decorating – all of that!  And don’t get me wrong!  I love all of those things!  (Except for the nutcrackers!  I’m not crazy about them!)  But there is a sense of wonder in the sights and sounds of this Season!  Our world gets transformed every year at this time!  There are lights, and trees, and wreaths and candles, and it’s all great!

But it’s our job, as God’s people, to focus on the amazement and the wonder of the Christmas story!  It’s our job to try, once again, to get our minds around the fact that God himself, became one like us, and entered our world as a baby.  And even that we can say without realizing the meaning of it!

So I’ll close by letting Zechariah say it.  And I’ll let John say it, too.  Zechariah said, “Blessed be the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people.”  And John said, “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of Grace and truth.  And we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.”

Prayer

Eternal God, show us again the wonder of your great love for us, seen in the child of Bethlehem.  Help us to be amazed once again.  Help us, like John, to proclaim the Good News of that great joy that is to all people.  And for all of this, we give you thanks and praise, in our Savior’s name, Amen.