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.