A, The Second Sunday after Christmas - Ephesians 1:3-14 "The Ephesian Experience"

The hatred humanity has for itself has manifested itself in peculiar ways in our society today.  As some hate their created self, they seek a change that pits their feelings against their minds—their feelings  against their bodies. 

In a twist of human perversion against God, folk who through the love of God speak the truth in love, are now accused of hate crimes against those who hate their created bodies, and the positions in which they are placed by God in our modern society. 

Truth has become subjective to the point where right has become wrong, and wrong has become right.  One objective truth outside “the feeling-self” is seen as evil, but a subjective truth from “the feeling-individual-self” is worshipped as the ultimate good.  The ludicrousness of our society today has become a place where people can be charged for hate crimes if someone’s feelings get hurt, while the hurt person actually hates what they were created to be.

This bitterness of humanity’s self has swept through society, and unfortunately the church has opened its doors to this bitterness.  That might seem good and loving to some.  The thought is that by bringing the world in and loving their feelings of hatred against themselves, the church can love them into not hating themselves and the darkness that dwells within.

However, this style of mission is not the mission to which God calls us in his word.  Rather, it’s self-centred, lazy, apathetic, and non-biblical.  The tide is running the wrong way.  A tsunami of spiritual darkness is welcomed into the church, and it destroys the church by severing the sovereignty of its one, holy, head—Jesus Christ.   

Scripture clearly calls God’s church to be cleansed of its sin through the work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who are sent by God the Father so that the body is grafted back into its head.  As Christ the head was sent into the world, likewise, we having been covered by God’s holiness, are sent into the darkness, as the light of Christ in a fallen world.  

Instead, the church is joining humanity in its deception that the self is sovereign, and God, if he is allowed to exist at all, is no longer supreme nor transcendent, but rather is made subject to how the individual self feels. 

Jesus was sent by God the Father.  Of Jesus we hear, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” (John 1:1–5, 9–10 ESV)

John the Baptist was sent by the Holy Spirit.  Of him we hear, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” (John 1:6–8 ESV)

As God’s church, we are sent as disciples to disciple the world having been forgiven and fed by the apostolic teaching of those who witnessed Jesus being sent to suffer on the cross for our sin, and was raised to life, as the non-extinguishable light of eternal life.

God’s congregation in Ephesus stands as a lighthouse, warning God’s church—yesterday, today, and tomorrow—as it sails through the darkness of humanity’s hatred of God and itself.  Unfortunately, most denominations, including world-wide Lutheranism has not understood the light shining in the darkness, is not receiving the warning, and is being shipwrecked and broken up on the rocks of human desires.  It’s occurring through navigation using the deceptive maps of human love and feelings, which is really hatred of the human self and God’s placement of humanity through the Holy Spirit.

The Ephesian congregation was led by Saint Paul from the synagogue in Ephesus after three months of reasoning with the unbelieving Jews of the city.  The congregation moved to the hall of Tyrannus, which is the hall of the “supreme ruler” from where we get the English word “tyrant”.  But rather than becoming a tyrant to the Ephesians, Paul daily proclaims the supreme rule of Jesus Christ to both Jews and Gentiles for over two years.

Paul does not proclaim the domination of Christ at Ephesus, but rather the inheritance and predestination of those who trust in Jesus having heard of his salvation.  Paul says, “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:11–14 ESV)

In Acts we hear how the Holy Spirit powerfully worked through Paul at Ephesus, healing many in the purpose of God’s will.  On the other hand, seven sons of a Jewish priest called Sceva were exposed as powerless when attempting to exorcise a demon which turned, attacked, and shamed them. 

The supreme power of Jesus Christ did not dwell amongst the Jews without their trust that Jesus Christ was the head.  This is demonstrated by the sons who sought to invoke the name of Jesus outside the counsel of God’s will, without the sealing faith of the Holy Spirit.

At the other extreme in Ephesus was the “heavenly place of Artemis”, a popular pagan female worship cult that enticed and tempted the church in Ephesus to welcome the deception of worshipping a rock that fell from the sky.  The Artemis cult loomed large over Ephesus as the town clerk is reported as saying in the book of Acts, “the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?”  (Acts 19:35 ESV)

A commotion had broken out amongst the metalsmiths who forged silver idols (literally: dwellings) of Artemis.  After Paul’s proclamation of Christ these craftsmen were losing business throughout Asia Minor and Ephesus. So, they whipped up a mob to oppose the truth of Paul’s proclamation knowing that “gods made with hands are not gods. And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.” (Acts 19:26–27 ESV)

Paul was in Ephesus just shy of three years, after he left, he still had cause to caution them against the powers and principalities of the Artemis cult and to refocus them on Christ as the heavenly place, tabernacling or dwelling amongst them as the only true heavenly place, rather than leaving them in the bitterness of false female idolatry.

What Paul says from the outset of his letter to the Ephesians is of crucial importance and throughout the rest of his letter Paul repeats and restates what he says here at the start,  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight.” (Ephesians 1:3–8 ESV)

We, like the Ephesian church, are called to accept the wisdom and insight of God and return to the heavenly place where we gather around Christ, inside and outside of time—the holy catholic and apostolic church.  We are called out of the world, so we can be sent as the light of Christ into the world, to expose the dark desires of the world, and show them the forgiveness under which we live.  We have the blessing as God’s beloved, to love as Christ, our Beloved, loves us. 

When God spoke through Paul to the Ephesians and then to Timothy, the pastor who served at Ephesus after him, God’s wisdom and prudence was omniscient­—all-knowing.  He knew then that the church would be tempted by Artemis worship today, as it was yesterday, and as it will be tomorrow!

We can thank God that Artemis is nothing. And the temple where the stone fell from heaven is desolate.  And we can thank God that he calls us to see the warning signs given to us through the Ephesian experience. We are reminded by Luke in his God-inspired record of the Holy Spirit’s work at Ephesus in the book of Acts, from Paul’s letters to the Ephesian congregation and Pastor Timothy, and Jesus’ call of repentance to the Ephesus church in John’s Revelation. 

We can also see the Holy Spirit’s warning to us through the science of biology where the bitterness of Artemis has been assigned to a genus of daisy plants named by Artemisia II of Caria .  One of which is “artemisia vulgaris” or “mugwort” from where the city of Chernobyl gets its name and now stands as a desolate radioactive warning in the modern world, and to a church tempted to follow the world in its woke Artemis faith idolatries that hates God’s ordering of one’s place in society, that rejects the designation of our human biology, and hates the fact that God is our Creator.

The Holy Spirit also calls us back into the word of God where another genus of artemisia stands as a warning to the world-wide church following the wide path to destruction.  This is “Wormwood” or  “artemisia absinthium”.

Uncannily similar to the report of Artemis in Acts nineteen, John prophesies in Revelation chapter eight, “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.” (Revelation 8:10–11 ESV)

Artemis has fallen and wormwood will fall on those who no longer listen to God.  Jesus Christ is the one and only blazing holy star of God raised up into the heavenly realm to his right hand. Now by the power of the Holy Spirit, God continues to split from his church those who welcome an unholy wormwood or bitter Artemis into its midst.    He calls us from the worship of human desires and flesh in all its various perversities to receive Jesus—the Word made flesh.  He leads us from those who invoke Jesus’ name without a faith empowered by the Holy Spirit, and away from baptismal waters that have been poisoned by fruits of vulgar Artemis. 

In the maturity of Jesus Christ, God splits from his church those who’ve embittered the Holy Spirit with a false unionism rather than a unity of oneness in the Holy Spirit to which the obedient church follows—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:5–6 ESV)

Let us pray.  Lord Jesus you are the only one who has ascended to God the Father as God the Son.  When you ascended on high you led a host of captives in your holy train.  Continue to cleanse your faithful captives with your blood as we’re daily led to repentance by the Holy Spirit.  Thankyou for the gifts of your word and sacraments that are given to sustain us in your life as male and female disciples of faith, so that we might love those whose lives are full of hateful desires towards you, hate where you have placed them, and hate the identity you have given to them. Amen. 

A, The First Sunday after Christmas - Matthew 2:13-23 "The Prophetic Fulfilment"

Herod and his brother Phasael were tetrarchs of Judea, or deputies, under John Hyrcanus II, the Judean leader and Jewish priest appointed by Mark Antony, the Roman politician and general.  When Hyrcanus II was ousted by his nephew with the help of the Parthians (geographically where the old Persian Empire ruled, or ancient Iran), Herod fled to Rome to have Hyrcanus II restored to power.  But instead, the Roman Senate appointed Herod as king of Judea.

On his return to Judea, Herod battled with and won the throne from Antigonus, Hyrcanus II’s nephew, also married Hyrcanus II’s granddaughter in a bid to win favour with the Jews.  Herod’s win ended the one-hundred-year Hasmonean dynasty in Judea, ushering in what is historically known as the Herodian Dynasty.

Herod the Great was not liked by the Jews, despite his marrying the Hasmonean priest and ruler’s granddaughter and his rebuilding of the second temple in Jerusalem.  To the Jews, Herod the Great was an Idumean, an Edomite, despite being raised as a Jew.  He is also remembered for his tyrannical authority, as a tax farmer, and as a client king for the Romans. Herod the Great was not well received by the Jewish Sanhedrin for his brutality, and the wider Jewish community despised the decadence oozing from the Herodian palace.

The political and religious turmoil that swirled around Jerusalem during Herod’s reign meant he constantly lived with one eye over his shoulder keeping watch for uprisings against his leadership.  The birth of Jesus, proclaimed as the King of the Jews by the Magi from the east, was a threat to Herod.  This political king needed to quickly quell any talk of a true son of David returning to the throne.

We hear, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” (Matthew 2:1–8 ESV)

Worshipping this new Christ child was the last thing on Herod’s mind.  He and all Jerusalem were troubled by the news of the Magi.   The Jewish priests were also caught out and had egg on their faces since the Holy Spirit had side stepped them and revealed the coming of Christ the King, to pagan magicians from the east.  It was only after the Magi came enquiring that they were forced to find the prophecy written in the books of Micah and Ezekiel (Micah 5:2, Ezekiel 34:23).

With political instability and the disapproval of the Judean countrymen, any news of a genuine Jewish king being born in the line of David was frightening to Herod as he sought to maintain his leadership.  This is the background into which Jesus was born at Bethlehem, the town of David!

Today Matthew’s gospel account is the only one out of the four Gospels that records the coming of the Magi from the east, and Herod the Great’s dismay that a king had been born.  If it weren’t for Matthew’s account, we would only hear of Herod’s progeny who ruled after his death. 

The events reported from Matthew’s Gospel not only give us a picture of the political mischief in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’s birth.  It also works as a bridge that connects the Christian church and the New Testament back to the Jewish faith when God spoke through the prophets in the Old Testament.

Herod the Great proved to be the tyrant that he was over his people.  Any threats to his kingship were quickly quashed.  The babies of Bethlehem are only one example of his treachery.  Herod was a paranoid person, in addition to the babies of Bethlehem he murdered forty-six members of the Sanhedrin, killed any surviving members from the Hasmonean family including his own wife, and some of his children.

However, such tyranny and murderous intent did not hinder the life of Jesus Christ.   It might seem as though it would be a simple thing to track down and exterminate a family that lived in weakness. After all, they were unprotected and relatively poor against the might and resources of Herod’s treachery. 

The faithfulness of God the Father comes to the fore as the Magi and Joseph are warned by angels of the Lord, faithful messengers.  And Matthew, a tax collector, called as a disciple and apostle, faithfully connects the dots between the old and new covenant, reporting to us in his Gospel this continuity in God’s plan of salvation, through and despite Herod’s horrific actions.

The humble circumstances through which our Saviour entered the world, are equally matched with a tax collector being the one through whom God chose to be a disciple, apostle, and writer of this “segue” Gospel.  Matthew, who formerly took tax from his people on behalf of the Romans, not unlike Herod, now gives a testimony to catechise and teach God’s chosen people that Jesus Christ is the true king of Israel, whom the prophets spoke of throughout the scriptures of the Old Testament.

In the story of the Magi, Herod’s response, and Mary, Joseph, and Jesus’ escape to Egypt we hear a repeated phrase, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.” (Matthew 2:15 ESV) In fact, similar words are common right the way through Matthew’s Gospel, some twelve times including Jesus’ own testimony in Matthew chapter five where Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17 ESV)

The hardship of Israel can be seen as carried and fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  He went to Egypt as did Joseph, Jacob, and their family.  He came out of Egypt with his parents as did Israel.  He wandered and suffered in the wilderness for forty days, after being baptised in the Jordan.  He then walked the way of the cross to be the Passover Lamb, reversing what happened to Israel who left Egypt after the Passover and tenth plague of death, a reversal of Herod’s plague of death at Bethlehem, and Israel was led in the Sinai wilderness by Moses under the Law for forty years.  The Israelites were saved by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) at the Jordan when they crossed over into Canaan, conquering the land of milk and honey, with God’s leadership through Joshua calling him to be bold and courageous.

When the Jews heard the Gospel of Matthew, they were called to see Jesus as the Christ, the Son of David, Immanuel, as proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah.  When we hear the Gospel of Matthew, we too are called to see the Messiah in this Christ Child, that he is the Son of David, that he is the Son of God, that he is our Servant King crucified on the cross.  Jesus is the holy sacrifice, and High Priest fulfilling all righteousness as he proclaimed to John the Baptist, compelling John to baptise him at the Jordan River into God’s plan of salvation for you, me, the Gentiles and the Jews.

In these days of confusion and trial, inside and outside the church, you and I are called to see that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of God’s plan for salvation as written in the Old and New Testaments — the word of God.  That despite the treachery of our times and the times yet to come, this Jesus of whom the prophets spoke and waited, is God with us, Immanuel, in our lives. 

Jesus is seeking to fulfil all righteousness in you, and his holy church, through his holy gifts. Amen.

Let us pray.

Keep each of us in your word Lord God Heavenly Father. So, the Holy Spirit can fulfil all righteousness within us. So, we are not caught out and left out when Jesus Christ, our Holy King returns to finally finish your holy plan of salvation, Amen.

A, The Birth of our Lord, Christmas Day- Isaiah 62:6-12 "The Sign for all Times"

Isaiah 62:6–12 (ESV) On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: “I will not again give your grain to be food for your enemies, and foreigners shall not drink your wine for which you have laboured; but those who garner it shall eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather it shall drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.” Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth: Say to the daughter of Zion, “Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.” And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord; and you shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.

Growing up outside towns, country kids ride their bikes on rural roads and over rough tricky terrain.  Many of us have childhood memories of negotiating our way along tracks around sticks, stones, and soft sandy soils.  There was nothing worse than the bike being jolted after hitting an obstacle only to feel its effect on your bottom as the bump shot up through the saddle of the bike seat.  Or, the strain on your legs to keep pedalling when the wheels of your bike sank in sand almost bringing you to a standstill.

When growing up on the farm riding a bicycle, I often dreamt and wished I lived in town.  Oh, how wonderful it would be to ride roads of bitumen and footpaths of cement where my backside could savour the smoothness of the highways and byways prepared for smooth sailing on a bicycle!

We are reminded of this as Isaiah calls God to prepare a way for his people in Zion — a restored Jerusalem. Isaiah calls God to, “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

Ah, how nice it would be not to hit stones with my wheels, not to struggle in sandy soils, and to ride like a royal on repaired roads of hot-mix and concrete!

Though, this is not just a picture of a childhood dream! It’s a picture of Zion, a new Jerusalem.  What is this Jerusalem, this Zion?  It’s not just a place of pleasant highways and byways!  It’s a place where all roads lead to the righteousness of God!  Where humanity can once again live with God in peace, as God originally intended when he created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden!

For us it is not the city of Jerusalem as such, but the place where heaven and earth, God and humanity, meet together in holy fellowship, where sin is atoned for, where salvation is realised in the recompense and reward of God.

But see what Isaiah says of Jerusalem­—of this holy Zion!  A strange thing occurs in this Jerusalem where God and humanity will meet.  The watchmen don’t merely watch and report what happens outside the city.  Rather, they are heralds, crying out to him who is outside the gates to come and cleanse the place.

The watchmen are called not to watch but to call God himself to remember Jerusalem.  This is unexpected, watchmen exposing the city, but for what purpose?  Watchmen should stand guard and protect the place against the enemy, not uncover the reality of a place to outsiders!

God had become an outsider in Jerusalem.  He had been thrown out of his own holy habitation.  His own people, chosen to be a holy nation turned their back on God; severing themselves from his presence at the temple, its Holy Place, and the Holies of Holies!  But Isaiah does not call the people back, to repent!  No! He calls God to come and establish Jerusalem and make it a praise in the earth.

In God’s eyes Jerusalem and its people had become wearisome to him rather than a praise in the earth.  

Of Judah and Jerusalem Isaiah speaks on God’s behalf, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.” (Isaiah 1:2–4 ESV)

God’s people opposed him!  They made themselves his enemy, yet God sought to reconcile them to himself, “‘Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers.” (Isaiah 1:18–21 ESV)

So, God became the outsider, the enemy.  Now God engages faithful watchmen of the city to call God back into the city and restore it.  “Go through, go through the gates; prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway; clear it of stones; lift up a signal over the peoples.” (Isaiah 62:10 ESV)

So, from behind the curtain of holy eternity a signal was sent.  Like a white flag is a sign of surrender the sign came.  However, it wasn’t a sign of surrender, but a sign of salvation was waved by God’s watchmen.  And God’s watchmen still wave this flag of salvation today, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12 ESV)

Shepherds became the first watchmen of God’s renewed kingdom.  Unclean men outside the gates of Jerusalem heard, saw, and witnessed baby Jesus who would become “Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles”. (1 Corinthians 1:23 ESV)

This baby Jesus would become both, “a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 8:14 ESV)

The call goes out this Christmas, for the church to allow Christ in from outside to rightfully take his place back into the heart of Christmas.  For the church to be the Jerusalem of God, to be the sanctuary where God and humanity gather around the throne of grace.

Jerusalem and the temple mound still stand as the testimony from God to Christians and Jews that God removes the stones from his pathway of salvation.  It continues to be so, but worse will happen to Jerusalem at an appointed time by God as a sign so God’s church turns from its sin from which Isaiah was calling Jerusalem and Judah. The desolation that Isaiah proclaims of Jerusalem, will make Chernobyl’s radiation look like a light sunburn.  The brokenness and rock-strewn path of Jerusalem, of Mugwort[1], will be cleared by God’s Son when he returns to put right the salvation of God, proclaimed by Isaiah

Like a child on a bike picturing a perfect pathway on which to ride, God sent his Son to reform the road of righteousness back to his holy presence.  The curtain of temple of God’s holiness has long been torn asunder, and the temple is gone, yet the cornerstone of our salvation remains in Christ Jesus.

The Son of God is now our sign.  From the crucifix the Christ child is risen and comes back into the most desolate of godless places and offers to restore hearts, people, and nations back into fellowship with God our Heavenly Father.  He is our peace through his birth, death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of our Father, and he is coming again.  Come Lord Jesus come!

Daughter of Zion, know your master’s manger! See the signs! Repent and allow for the restoration work of the Holy Spirit!  Let understanding be with a Holy Spirit-filled understanding within us, your church.  Let us stand firm in faith under God’s word, or not at all! 

Let us pray.

Holy Spirit harness us, your church, call Christ into its Jerusalem and cleanse the stones from Christ’s holy highway.  Let the cross of Christ’s birth and resurrection be raised up as our eternal sign in the world.  Thank you for making your faithful church holy through his sinless blood.   Remove all nuclear reactivity from your church, stop us from split from you and fuse within us renewed righteousness and clear salvation in Jesus Christ alone.  Amen.

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[1] Mugwort is “artemisia vulgaris,” (see Acts 19:23-41, where the Ephesian church followed Christ under the constant shadow of the common vulgar female Artemis cult). Mugwort is from where the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl gets its name. See Paul’s written call for the Ephesians to remain in the “heavenly place” in Jesus Christ and not other “heavenly places” throughout his letter to the Ephesians. (Eph 1:3,10,20,  2:6, 3:10,15 4:10, 6:9,12)  Chernobyl stands as a modern-day sign for the church to reject the worldly vulgarity and the commonness of “Artemis type heavenly places”.  Jerusalem in the next generation will become Mugwort, a radioactive sign, for the church, greater than Chernobyl, even greater than Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9-10, 3:9).  God was prepared to make a similar sacrifice of Israel to save Judah from falling. (Isaiah 7)   Similarly, God will reveal his power to a church that has rejected his Son, the Christ Child - Immanuel, in the future desolation of Jerusalem as a sign calling his people back to him, before the day when Christ will cleanse Mugwort of its radiation with his light of eternal life at his second coming.  It’s the church’s mission to proclaimed Christ crucified to both Jews and Gentiles so some might repent and be saved.

A, The Fourth Sunday of Advent - Romans 1:1-7 Isaiah 7 "Christ the Head in a Decapitated Society"

The promise of Immanuel that God spoke through the prophet Isaiah comes at a time when the evil of God’s people was feverishly high.  King Ahaz, king of Judah had turned from the Lord to the gods of the nations around him.  He sacrificed his own son as a burnt offering and set up high places of sacrifice on hills and under significant green trees.  Ahaz had priests build a copy of a pagan altar he had seen in Damascus and had it placed in God’s temple in Jerusalem. (read 2 Kings 16, 2 Chronicles 28)

Their sister kingdom of Israel was no better.  They had not had a king who led them in the ways of the Lord, since their split from Jerusalem.  Pekah, the King of Israel, was not a son of the king.  Rather he was the former king of Israel’s captain, who conspired against the king and murdered him in the citadel of the king’s house. (read 2 Kings 15:25) Now he joined forces with Syria to fight against Israel’s sister, Judah.

It was an ugly time in Israel and Judah, as two kingdoms of God became bodies without heads. Two sons, indeed kings, estranged from each other, and their holy head, our Heavenly Father.

The restoration of God’s holy headship comes in the resurrection unity of Jesus Christ.  Saint Paul stands as a servant, set apart as God’s apostle for the gospel of God, and points his Jewish brethren and both grafted Gentiles and Romans to Jesus Christ, “who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:3–6 ESV)

Jesus now stands as the fulfilment of God’s promise to all nations through Abraham, and to his chosen people of Israel, as the righteous head. He is the faithful head, who perfectly follows the will of the Father, and obediently serves the people of God, for the benefit of all nations, all people.  But disobedient kings lost their heads with vainglorious leadership and led the people of Judah and Israel to do the same and sacrifice God in favour of pagan pleasures.  On the other hand, Jesus didn’t do this, rather, he loved his church, his body, in faithful submission unto death.  The holy head is now restored in the resurrection, with the body of believers who’ve been grafted into his holiness.

But alas, we too live in ugly times.  Times of individualism, that see the pleasures of the heart make people perform as though they have no heads.  Vengeance from leadership, retribution against leadership, people’s payback in shootings and other violent attacks, hatred, gossip and character assassinations reveal the ugliness of our world -  even more, the ugliness of the human condition. 

Since society has dethroned God from being its head in “the Age of Enlightenment” from the late seventeenth century, the Holy Head has continued to be severed from society.  Parents, God’s holy headship on earth, have lost or forsaken their authority. History is treated with suspicion and has now been made subject to the pleasures of the individual, and in recent times we’ve been wooed and now face the woes of individuals rejecting the genetics and gender of their bodies.  Literally, the head now can be severed from the body, and God’s will, by how one feels about their sexuality.

In the nineteen eighties, there was a comedy show, where in a scene four fellows were on a train.  One of these four young ones was rebellious. He saw a sign in the train, warning people not to put their heads out the window of the train.  So, being anti-authority, he disobeyed the sign and put his head out the window and had his head knocked off. 

The next scene shows his headless body walking back along the railway line trying to find its head.  His head sees its body stumbling around without direction and with much abuse and alerts his body to his head.  But his body doesn’t walk up to collect and restore its head.  No! Rather in a continuation of the body’s anti-authority over the head, it kicks the head along the railway line[1].

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever picture this morbid black comedy as anything more than that!  But today this black comedy from the nineteen eighties appears to be a prophetic picture of exactly what society has become — an ugly body disconnected from its head kicking itself along the rails of self-destruction.

Isaiah’s word to the king of Israel and the promise of Immanuel stands as a word of law and gospel to the church today. Israel and Judah stand as a warning to the church, which in the same way is seeking to join society in its quest for separation and headlessness.

Unlike King David, King Ahaz didn’t see God the Father as his head.  So, we hear, “When the house of David was told, ‘Syria is in league with Ephraim (Israel),’ the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” (Isaiah 7:2 ESV)

However, despite Ahaz’s abominable sins against his son, his kingdom, and God, God calls Isaiah to say to Ahaz, “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… thus says the Lord God: ‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass. For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. And within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people. And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.’” (Isaiah 7:4,7-9 ESV)

God sought to be merciful to Judah and sever the heads of Syria and Israel, because of the promises he had made to King David years before.  But King Ahaz continued in faithlessness and his rejection of God’s headship, severing himself from God. We hear, “Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz: ‘Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’ But Ahaz said, ‘I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.’” (Isaiah 7:10–12 ESV)

By saying, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.” King Ahaz was actually putting God to the test.

God promises to be faithful to Ahaz, if Ahaz would bow to his head and ask for a sign, but he doesn’t so God says through his prophet Isaiah, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”  (Isaiah 7:13–14 ESV)

In the midst of such rebellion and ugliness God gives the promise of Immanuel—God with us.  Isaiah then proceeds to tell Ahaz what to expect since he has severed himself from his Heavenly Head.  He says, “The Lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim (Israel) departed from Judah—the king of Assyria!” (Isaiah 7:17 ESV)

In the midst of human ugliness God’s promise of Immanuel still stands as the great beacon of light for society and the church, despite “Assyrian-type” terrors!  God continues, “to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:3–6 ESV)

This obedience is literally a “calling under” Christ Jesus.  To once again allow God to be the head and all who are baptised into the body of Christ to function as one body under the Head for his sake so the gospel can be spread to all nations.   

The church and its leaders are called to repentance back under the headship of Christ. To be God’s church of the word, but under the eternal word of God.  Rather than conform to the ugliness of the world, we’re called to be agents of reformation and renewal led by the Holy Spirit for the salvation of the world.

The church, its leaders and bishops, indeed, all baptised, can only stand as the body of Christ when the body remains under the headship of Christ.  This means the body remains under the head in submission to its head.  The church is called to remain under the word of God and be led by the headship of Christ rather than being led astray by the whims of the world.  Like King Ahaz, Lutherans and other denominations are sacrificing God’s Son to society, to feed the gods of popularity and pleasure.

Let us not be a church of bishops and people that stands over the word of God, interpreting it or dismissing parts of it for our evil pleasure or popularity.  What kind of love shows itself when we do this?  It’s a love that’s separated from the obedience of faith in God.  It’s a human uprising, a beheading of the faith in a human-spirited revolution!  Human faith in a lost headless body walking away from its Immanuel, who’s calling it back.  

God’s kings of Israel and Judah led God’s people to sin against him.  This word stands as an eternal testimony and reminder that God’s chosen people, the true vine, can be grafted off and destroyed.  Are you prepared to gamble God’s work to save you with your human desires and stance over God’s word?  Interpretation that explains God’s word away for pleasures or popularity’s sake, will only reveal that you’ve decapitated yourself from Immanuel, who is coming again to judge the living and the dead. 

In these ugly times, know that he will remove the headless dead bodies that have kicked him, Immanuel, God with us, to the kerb. Therefore, live in the hope that Jesus, our Immanuel, is coming again to put repentant sinners right with holy, eternal resurrection and restoration. Amen. 

[1] The Young Ones, Series 2, Episode 1, “Bambi” (1984)