Isaiah 9:6-7

6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

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The call of the prophet is difficult even in the best of circumstances. It is not an easy task to speak truth to the prevailing powers of the day. The task becomes increasingly more difficult when those powers are unresponsive or even worse, hostile, to the word of the prophet. Such was the task to which Isaiah was called. King Ahaz had forsworn Isaiah’s counsel to trust God when Ahaz allies himself with the dreaded Assyrians. Ahaz’s vassalage was made worse when he adopted Assyrian pagan practices and reconfigured the Temple to accommodate pagan sacrifices. Judah and Israel has some truly awful kings, but Ahaz could be considered the worst because it was he who had burned his own son as an offering to Moloch. The magnitude of Isaiah’s pain and sorrow seems incalculable as he must witness these abominations. I would have been tempted to retire from active prophet duty with the small comfort of knowing that I at least had tried. Thankfully, Isaiah does not resign himself to the darkness of despair but keeps seeking the heart of God who in turn honors Isaiah’s fortitude with a promise.

Yes, the darkness was pervasive but it was not absolute. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” Isaiah declares in 9:2. Here in a culture that thinks so little of children that the king has offered his child as a sacrifice, God uses a child to bring undiminishing light. How Isaiah’s heart must have beamed with hope and delight as God promised that the government would rest on this child. I think we see the hope of this chid in the titles by which he will be called, thanks in no small part to Handel’s “Messiah,” but I suspect Isaiah was refreshed more by the promise that followed these titles.

Ahaz had been so weak that it caused him to seek aid from those more powerful than himself. The contrast God foretells is stark, for the promised child will be so influential that “of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” Israel would no longer be the sickly nation others used and abused, but would be the chief influencer in world affairs. Likewise, the promise of achieving this through peace and not war, also seen in 9:5, had to be invigorating to a people and prophet weary of almost continuous warfare. Isaiah may have been content with this, but the promised blessings of God abound as God asserts that Israel will no longer suffer under the capricious whims of ever changing kings. The promised child would sit “on the throne of David and over his king to establish and uphold it..from this time forth and forevermore.” We often trace Israel’s kings based on their lack of faith and pagan practices. The promised child would bring unbridled continuity as he would rule “with justice and with righteousness.” One might think this is what thrilled Isaiah so because it would mean he could retire. He would no longer be required to implore the king and people of God to seek justice, to treat all equitably, to bring to the center of community life those on the margins, for righteousness would reign. I don’t think this is what thrilled him though. I believe what thrilled him was the simple fact that the people of God would finally be wholly committed to the pursuit and exercise of God’s priorities in the world. The people of God would at last worship their God with pure hearts free of conflicting allegiances. The prophet is always consumed with this passion to unite the ways of the people with the heart of God, and now that would occur. More pointedly, this cementing together of humanity’s pursuits with God’s priorities would be accomplished not through human hands, but by the zeal, the passion of God. The same overwhelming passion that created the universe would once again be manifested as the curse of the Fall was reversed.

I picture Isaiah writing this revelation from God and then dropping his quill, leaning back in his chair, and resting in the sheer amazement of God’s love and power. It is easy for me to picture this because it’s what I’m feeling currently as I read these remarkable promises of God again. Here we sit in times just as tumultuous, if not more so, than those Isaiah inhabited. Existential threats to human existence abound and still I can read these lines from Isaiah and rest. I can rest in the certainty that I do not have to wait for the promised child, for he has already arrived.I must simply rest in the assurance of his return and know that strengthened by the same zeal which Isaiah foretold I can make it through today’s tumults. I must rest in the power of all those titles the promised child that Isaiah mentioned, for by them he will sustain and keep me. I must rest in the warmth of the light that darkness has never overcome. I must rest assured that the future is not more darkness, but greater light. I must rest. I must rest like that promised child in Bethlehem’s manger.

– Rev. Marc Sanders