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)