Rejoice! God Has and Will Save You!

Your reaction to the phrase “Consider it done,” depends on the person. When your friend who you have bought a watch for the last eight Christmases tells you that they will bring the eggnog half an hour before you Christmas party begins, you make sure to buy the eggnog a week in advance. On the other hand, when your neighbor tells you that they will take out the trash and get the mail for you while you are on vacation before you even ask, you give them your spare key without a second thought because in the past they have alphabetized your mail and left a plate of cookies on your kitchen counter.

On many occasions, God warned Judah that he would punish them if they did not stop sinning, but like that unreliable friend you must keep buying the watch for who does not pay attention to the time, they continued in their sinful ways not to paying attention to God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God told Judah that they would be defeated and taken captive by Babylon. The sins of Judah are a warning to us because we are God’s people. We have been saved by our newborn Savior and are here today to sing his praises, but the temptations of the world will be there when we leave this building and sinful desires are already working in our hearts. Paul warned the believers in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 10, 12 “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Judah had Jerusalem as its capital city with the Temple built by Solomon, but they gave up hearing the Word of God and worshiping him to pursue worldly power and pleasures. God also warns you against falling away because without God there is only death and hell as we hear in Hebrews 10,

“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.”

Hebrews 10:26-27

God essentially told Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel, to “Consider it done,” in our Old Testament reading this Christmas morning. God gave his message of punishment for sin to Judah through Isaiah, but he also promised to save them as we hear in Isaiah 52,

“Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.”

Isaiah 52:8-9

Picturing the future when Jerusalem was in ruins from the destruction of the Babylonian army in 586 BC, Isaiah gave the hope that the watchmen who kept their eyes on the horizon would see the Lord bringing his people back, and in 538 BC exiles retuned from Babylon who began to retore the Temple and walls of Jerusalem.

These prophesies also pointed to the salvation Jesus would bring. Zion and Jerusalem are often used in the Bible as pictures of all believers. In Isaiah 52, we read, 10 “The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.” For the nation of Israel, God allowed Babylon to fall, and the Israelites return to rebuild Jerusalem. The greater fulfillment of this prophecy was God redeeming us. Our captivity is to sin, which separates us from God our Creator leaving us in the darkness. God did not leave us in the darkness of captivity, but shined his light of freedom in the world to save us as we heard in our Gospel reading from John 1,

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”

John 1:9-11

God put the strength of his holy arm on display for the world when Jesus was crucified up on the cross up on a hill and at his resurrection, and ascension with many witnesses. God worked through sinful man’s rejection of Jesus to save us. This gracious forgiveness is the glory of God; it is his work to save us when we did not deserve it. We give glory to God singing his thanks and praise on Christmas for what he has done, again summarized in John 1, 14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

You are still in captivity. God has saved you from your sins, but you and I still live in the sinful world. We watch like the watchmen from the past waiting for our Lord to return to take us to be with him in heaven. Our New Testament reading from Hebrews 1, fills us with hope at the day when we will be truly free because of Jesus who has purified us from our sins and rules all things for us in heaven, 3 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” It was so unnecessary for God to save us, since we were created to be his people, but our sins separated us from him, so he came after us to pay for our freedom and make us his people again. Isaiah would have been frustrated as he watched Judah chose sin and captivity over love and trust in God. He would also have been frustrated in his own sins. When you grow frustrated, pessimistic and apathetic over society or your own circumstances, remember that you have been freed from the captivity of sin by what Jesus has already done for you. That is your source of joy on Christmas and every day.

Your reaction to the phrase “Consider it done,” depends on the person. If the person is unreliable, the phrase is met with an eye roll. If the person is reliable, the phrase is met with thankfulness. God is reliable, so we join with Isaiah in giving thanks to God with the words of Isaiah 52,

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Rejoice God has and will save you.

Isaiah 52:7