Today is the first Sunday after Christmas. For too many people this has usually been a kind of an in-between Sunday, in-between Christmas and New Years. This year this in-between Sunday is New Years Eve, which we celebrate tonight. The children have been out of school. Some people have been off work. For many work seemed to simply slow down as we wait to get ready for the new year. For us, this is the seventh day of Christmas. Remember, Christmas lasts for twelve days, from December 25 to January 6, the day in which we celebrate Epiphany, the visit of the Magi or wise men, and the beginning of the Epiphany season. So, although the radio stations have ceased playing Christmas music and the stores are stocking their shelves for Valentines day, I guess, which by the way is on Ash Wednesday this year, truly for us Christians, we are really in the middle of our Christmas celebration.
Our readings for this morning speak of joy, true joy. We have joy, true joy because in the birth of Christ Jesus we have forgiveness of sins, we have righteousness, hope and grace which have been given to us by God. Christmas is a time of gift giving and I distinguish gift giving from present exchanging in that what we often do is simply exchange presents, that is I give you a present and you give me a present, which is a nice custom, whereas gift giving is what God does, that is He gives gifts without expecting anything in return; thus, it is God who is the Gift Giver and we who are the ones who are given to. This morning we continue to celebrate the gifts our great God gives to us.
In our text Isaiah rejoices in the Lord. Isaiah rejoices because of the Lord’s promised salvation, as he says, “61:10I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (v. 10). By faith in Jesus, the Lord’s promised salvation, whose birth we celebrated just six days ago, by faith in Jesus we wear, not our robes of sins but we are clothed with Jesus’ robes of righteousness. By faith in Jesus, when God looks at us, He sees, not our sin, but Jesus’ perfection. By faith in Jesus, we are clothed in our heavenly wedding garments, in His garments of salvation.
Notice how Isaiah gives credit where credit is due. “11For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations” (v. 11). It is the Lord, or as Isaiah says, the Lord God, who motivates our rejoicing. Because of our sinful nature, because we are conceived and born in sin and because we continue to sin we cannot rejoice on our own, thus it is the Lord God who stirs this rejoicing in us. And Isaiah states this for us clearly reminding us that it is the Lord God who makes righteousness and praise spring up in us.
And notice who it is that is saved. Jesus came, not just to save the children of Israel, but to save all people. Isaiah tells us that the Lord brings salvation to all nations. We are included in the all nations. Jesus was born to be the Savior for all people, of all places, of all times, that is what we call universal atonement, Jesus died for the universe. Just as important, and even more important to each one of us, however, is what we call vicarious atonement, that is that Jesus came to be my Savior, for me, in my place. That is what vicarious atonement means, that Jesus came to atone for each one of us personally in our place, that Jesus is our Savior, your Savior and mine.
Following Isaiah’s words, the Lord speaks. We pick up at verse one, “62:1For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch. 2The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. 3You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God” (v. 1-3). Because of His great love for us, Isaiah tells us that the Lord will send a Savior and will call all people to faith in His Savior. The Lord promised to send a Savior and He specifically made His promise to Abram, whose name He changed to Abraham. Through Abraham, all nations will be blessed. Through the children of Israel, the Lord would send a Savior for the world. Jesus came as an Israelite. He came to fulfill God’s promise to send a Savior. By faith in Jesus all people who believe in Him will be clothed in the righteousness won by Him on the cross.
Jesus is the Savior who came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. Many among the children of Israel rejected Him as their Savior, as John tells us in His Gospel, but to those who received Him, to those who believed on Him, they have been given life, new life, eternal life. The plans of God were that the children of Israel were to be a light for all nations. They were not to refuse the Savior, but they were to be the ones through whom the Savior came and through whom the message of salvation went out into the rest of the world.
The faithful, those who believe in Jesus, are to be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand. We Christians, believers in Jesus, are a crown of splendor. We are the recipients of all God’s good gifts and blessings. By faith in Jesus we are clothed with His robes of righteousness, we are seen as perfect before God in heaven, we are given abundant life in this world and life in the world to come, even eternal life in heaven. As John says we are given blessings upon blessings.
What does all this mean? Our lessons for this morning remind us of all that we have recently celebrated, namely the fulfillment of all these words in the birth of Jesus. We celebrate that we have seen the Lord’s righteousness. We have seen the Lord’s salvation. We have seen and we bear witness of the Savior of the world, Christ Jesus, the Lord.
This morning we are reminded that we celebrated, not the trappings of Christmas, but the Christ of Christmas. As John tells us in his “Christmas” account, the Word, God, became flesh, and made His dwelling among us. God tented among us for a short time, long enough to take care of our salvation. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only, God Himself. When we are asked, “what is God like?” We can give an answer, because we have seen God. We have seen God in Jesus, who is true God.
This morning we continue to celebrated the gift of the Baby. And as we celebrate the gift of the Baby, we are reminded, once again, that our celebration of this Child is always a celebration in the shadow of the cross, because this Baby was born for a purpose, this Baby was born to die. Which brings us back to our first statement, that our readings are readings of joy. We do not think very much joy is to be had in death, but it is only because of the death of Jesus that we can have joy; joy of forgiveness and joy of eternal life.
How is this done? This is done by the Lord as we said earlier. First, it is the Lord who makes the promises to us. He made the first promise in the Garden of Eden and continued to reiterate His promise to us through time. His promise was that He would send a Savior for all people, all nations. Yes, He narrowed the line of fulfillment of His promise, that He would fulfill His promise through the Children of Israel, but He never narrowed His promise of who would be saved, that is that the Savior would be the Savior of all people.
It is also the Lord who fulfills the promises He makes. He is the one who gave His Son, true God, to be born of a woman, to become true man. He is the one who put all our sins on His Son. He is the one who took out the punishment for all our sins on His Son. He is the one who did what needed to be done in order to bring us back into a right relationship with Himself. He is the one who showed His great love for us.
It is the Lord who gives us the rewards of the promise. Sin separates us from God. God sends His Son to take care of our sins. With our sins paid for, and by faith in Jesus, we are seen by God as being righteous and holy, sinless and perfect. Being clothed in Christ’s perfection, when God looks at us He sees us as being perfect and invites us into His heavenly mansions to be given eternal joy, forever.
Finally, it is the Lord who gives us to rejoice in His rewards. Again, as we read earlier in Isaiah, it is the Lord who makes praise spring up in us, to give praise to the Lord for all He has done, does and continues to do for us. Notice it is the Lord who does and gives all things for us, and sometimes we might imagine, in spite of us. God gives and we are given to. God gives His Son. He gives us faith in His Son. He strengthens and keeps us in faith in His Son. He clothes us with His Son’s robes of righteousness. He gives us heaven because of the faith He gives us in His Son. He even gives us the ability and moves in us to speak words of thanks for all that He does for us. He gives and we are given to.
Let us rejoice and give thanks to God. And I say that as a Gospel imperative. As we have seen, it is not we, of ourselves who do the things we do, but it is the Lord who works and stirs in us to do the things we do. With that in mind, then I say, let us, with the help and by the motivation of the Lord, give thanks to the Lord. Let us, with the help and by the motivation of the Lord, say together, to Him be the glory, forever. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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