Isaiah 9:2-7, 52:7-10, 62:6-12: Christmas: It's About Hope

Lectionary Cycle Year B: Christmas Eve / Day
Isaiah 9:2-7, 52:7-10, 62:6-12 (Read it on Bible Gateway)
Christmas: It's About Hope
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As we come to the readings for Christmas we find three different selections from Isaiah, all of which deal with Isaiah's messianic prophecies. While these passages also have other layers of meaning, there is no doubt that their primary focus is on the coming Messiah. Let's look at each in turn.


The Child (9:2-7)...
This passage is one of the most famous quoted from Isaiah, and it's clear why it was chosen for Christmas. "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given" is an outright proclamation of Christmas, the birth of that child Jesus, the Son of God given into the world. It is hard for any one to look at a newborn child and not feel hope for the future, feel the potential and possibilities in that new child. So the image of Isaiah's promised child invokes that kind of hope, just as our remembering the Christ child as an infant invokes our own.

The titles Isaiah references here, "Wonderful Counselor...Prince of Peace" are titles that, for us Christians at least, have become synonymous with Christ. They, along with the other images of the passage, sum up all that we have come to see in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Christ. We see Christ as the light of the world, breaking into a world filled all too often with darkness. We see Christ as the crux point of grace that opened salvation to all, thus enlarging the nation of faithful to all who would believe. We see Christ as freeing us from sin and its dark oppression and heavy yoke. We also believe that ultimately it will be Christ who brings the kind of peace where even the implements of war can be burned, for we will never need them again.

It is so easy for us to attribute these words of Isaiah to Christ, to see them as having been and hopefully continuing to be fulfilled by Christ. It is so easy for us that we may lose the scope of significance that these words pre-date Christ by several hundred years!

The Messenger (52:7-10)...
The people of Isaiah's time needed words of hope and they found that hope in the prophet's message. Isaiah reminded them of who they were, the commitments and promises that had been made, the relationship of love between them and God, and those words called them back to much of what they had lost. This aspect of the message comes through even more in the second passage.

In the days of Isaiah, messengers carried important word from place to place. After a great battle, or at the end of a war, the first thing to do would be to send a messenger back to the people and to the King to share word, sometimes of victory, sometimes of defeat. Likewise, Watchmen, posted in towers, were entrusted to keep vigilance over a town or city. Most often we think about them in conjunction with providing early warning of potential threats. However, they also had a more joyous duty, such as announcing visiting royalty, or the return of a victorious army.

In a way this passage could refer to Isaiah himself, as a prophet. He carried the messages of God to God's people, he watched for the signs of God's coming and the impending restoration of the people to God's grace. His words continue to be a message to us even still as we look forward to God's continued blessing and salvation. Why else would we include those words in Scripture and read them every year to remind ourselves of God's promises to us?

Deliverance (62:6-12)...
The final passage here is much more focused on the promises themselves, the restoration that will come. Part of Isaiah's message was the restoration to Jerusalem from the exile; it continues to be a promise of restoration to us as well. The world we live in seems to be absent a messiah, a saving grace, and a transforming power at times.

This is one of the reasons to remind ourselves of the scope of Isaiah's prophecies. Spoken several hundred years before Christ was born, yet who among us would argue that Isaiah's words did not speak of Christ's coming? If so, then we need to remember that those words had been passed down through several centuries of generations. They now come to us almost three millennia later and should still carry hope to us. Christmas is about hope. It's about remembering what has come before, remembering that promises made so long ago have been, over time, fulfilled. It allows us to believe that with time yet to come, more promises will be fulfilled. It can give us reason to believe and to hope.

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