1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.   2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.   3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.   4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.   5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.  For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”   6 A voice says, “Cry out.”  And I said, “What shall I cry?”  “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.   7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them.  Surely the people are grass.   8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”   9 You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain.  You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”   10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him.  See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.   11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.  - Isaiah 40:1-11, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.

Dear Friends in Christ,

For many people, maybe us included, the next three weeks will be the busiest of the entire year.  If it hasn’t already happened, sometime soon someone will undoubtedly ask us is we are "ready for Christmas."  And we’ll know exactly what they mean.  They’re talking about shopping and cleaning and decorating and partying and baking and corresponding, all of which sometimes makes Christmas seem more like a deadline to be met than the Christian celebration it is.

In and of themselves, the different ways in which we observe the Holiday may be well and good.  But amid all the traditions that we associate with Christmas, God in His Word takes us in a different direction today.  Through words from the prophet Isaiah He gives us some advice on the proper and primary way of

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS

Knowing that our time will be spent on lots of things in the next 2+ weeks, this is our Lord’s counsel to us on the basis of our text:

"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins."  These are beautiful words.  To fully appreciate them, we need to set the background…

Isaiah chapter 39 ends on a sad note.  There we learn that in the future God’s Old Testament people, the Children of Israel, would be taken captive and led away by a powerful enemy.  This happened just as predicted, taking place approximately 600 years before the birth of Christ.

In chapter 40 (where our text begins), by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the prophet Isaiah sees this future event as already having taken place.  Through Isaiah, the Lord wishes to assure His people that He hasn’t forgotten them, that He is still in control, and that at His appointed time He will free them from their captivity.

But the message was to go deeper than this.  Not only would God set them free from the physical captivity they would suffer at the hands of their enemy; He would also set them free from something much greater – the spiritual captivity of sin.  Consequently, Isaiah was to proclaim the three-fold message of comfort to Jerusalem (meaning God’s people) that we find in the opening words of our text for today.

First, he was to tell Jerusalem that "her hard service had been completed."  In other words, this captivity at the hands of her enemy would come to an end.

Secondly, he was to tell her that "her sins had been paid for."  God has now moved from earthly to spiritual matters.  Old Testament believers knew just as well as we do that no one is able to make up or atone for their sins before a holy God.  Old Testament believers knew as we do that no one can be saved eternally by keeping all of God’s laws perfectly because we are sinners, and according to our sinful nature we are incapable of "paying for" our sins…

Therefore, what they are told here – that their sins had been paid for – is another promise that God would send a Savior from sin.  And that promise, as we joyfully know, found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  A little later on in his wonderful chapter 53 Isaiah tells us how this Savior would save us: "HE was pierced for OUR transgressions, HE was crushed for OUR iniquities; the punishment that brought US peace was upon HIM, and by HIS wounds WE are healed."

As a result of this (and this is the third message of comfort), God proclaims that Jerusalem "has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins."  Not double trouble, but double goodness.  Grace and mercy. In that sense, we all receive double from our Lord’s hand for our sin.  That’s what grace is all about.  Because of Jesus Christ, not only do we not receive what we do deserve for our sins (hell), but rather the exact reverse is true: We do receive what we don’t deserve (heaven)…  This is the comforting message Isaiah was to deliver to captive Israel.  This knowledge of God’s grace would strengthen them and bolster them throughout their captivity.  And even those who died in exile on foreign soil knew that spiritually they were free.

Today God gives each of us that same three-fold promise and for the same reason: so we can lift up our hearts.  Our hard service, too, will come to an end.  As the Jewish people whom Isaiah addressed would one day return to their homeland, we too will one day enter our homeland of heaven.  And as we look around us and see the results of disobedience to God; as we wince at the prevalence of sin and wickedness in the world and become almost battle weary in our contention with it; as we experience in our own lives things which bring us pain or grief or a sense of loss, we can take great comfort in the fact that the best is yet to come.  There is a better world awaiting us…

Because, in the words of our text, our sins have been paid for.  What a comfort that is!  The One Isaiah prophesied of did indeed come, and we will celebrate His birth in less than three weeks.  Little baby Jesus meek and mild was born on Christmas Day.  But that was just the beginning.  He grew up.  And He grew up to be the sinless and sacrificial Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world by his death on the cross as the perfect substitute for all mankind.  Through trusting in Him as our Savior we receive that double goodness from the Lord’s hand for all our sins.  Instead of damnation, we have salvation.  Instead of a life dominated by God’s wrath and punishment, ours is a life of richly and daily receiving God’s grace and mercy…

Wouldn’t you agree that the most imminent danger for Christians living in a society which is shaped largely by non-Christian values is to unconsciously fall in step with the world?  And the world is all wrapped up in the trappings of Christmas, but not the reason for Christmas.  There is only one thing that is essential to Christmas.  And that’s the Babe of Bethlehem.  He alone is comfort, comfort for God’s people…  Especially now, then, during Advent, let us take the time to comforted by the meaning of Jesus Christ for our lives.

"A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.  Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.  And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it.  For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’"  It was an oriental custom that when kings traveled, messengers were sent ahead to those who lived along the roads.  They were to make their portion of the road smooth and level by filling in the low spots and lowering the high spots.  In other words, they were to remove any obstacles that might hinder the king’s path…

Using this figurative language, Isaiah was telling the Children of Israel that they must prepare the way for the Lord’s coming to them.  This preparation was to take the form of repentance and removal of all spiritual obstacles, such as apathy and indifference.

Centuries later these words found their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of John the Baptist.  As the forerunner of Jesus, he said the same thing to the people of his and every other day: repent and prepare your hearts for the Lord by getting rid of any obstacles that might hinder His path.

The key word here is "prepare." Isaiah and John the Baptist lived at different times and had different audiences, but both stressed the need for preparation.  That need applies to us as well.  We, too, need to take the time to prepare for the coming of the Lord at Christmas.  How shall we do this?  Allow me to make some suggestions…

In Luke chapter 2 we are told that on the first Christmas Mary, the mother of Jesus, pondered all those Christmas events in her heart.  We prepare ourselves in the same way, as we ponder in our hearts the event we will be celebrating shortly.  We prepare ourselves by daily uttering the words of that Christmas hymn/prayer known by many of us: "Ah dearest Jesus, holy child, make Thee a bed, soft, undefiled, within my heart that it may be a quiet chamber kept for Thee…"

We prepare ourselves by reading Scripture, all of which centers around the Babe of Bethlehem.  Martin Luther once made the comment that every verse of every chapter of every book of the Bible points to Jesus Christ in some way.  Read the Bible with that thought in mind and try to figure out how each verse radiates Christ…

We prepare ourselves by setting aside time in our prayers to especially thank God for sending His Son – an act that was neither required or the least bit obligatory on His part.

We prepare ourselves by gazing upon Christ not only as a little baby on December 25, but seeing Him in every baby and every human being.  After all, was it not Christ Himself who said: "Whatever you do for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me?"

We prepare ourselves by honestly identifying and then, with God’s help, removing obstacles such as pride (thinking we’ve gotten where we are by our own hard work) or an indifference to God and man rooted in our natural tendency toward selfishness.  We prepare ourselves by taking a good honest look inside and seeing where and what our priorities in life really are.  And then repenting of the times we have failed to love and honor God by our words and actions…

It is important that we take the time to prepare ourselves.  A hastily prepared meal or report or plan of action will never be what it could be or should be.  Likewise, our celebration of the greatest event in history will also not be what it could be or should be if we fail to prepare ourselves properly for it.  So Isaiah’s encouragement to us is to not let the next 2.5 weeks simply come upon us or to let Christmas "sneak up on us," but to actively prepare for it.

And finally, let us take time to reflect.  The last portion of our text reads: "A voice says, ‘Cry out.’  And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’  ‘All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them.  Surely the people are grass.  The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever.’"

Grass is often used in Scripture as a picture of nothingness, a lack of endurance.  The point that is being made in these lines is that the lives of men and women – our lives – are but a fleeting second in comparison to the eternity of God, and that even the glory and accomplishments of mankind are but faded flowers in comparison to the holiness of God.

This kind of talk certainly encourages us make time to become a little philosophical and reflect on the brevity of our lives.  And because of the brevity of life, these words encourage us to reflect upon the importance of staying connected with the Word of our God, which stands forever.

And as we allow ourselves to "wax philosophical," take time to reflect on what a sad situation it would be if that all there is to Christmas is the gift-giving, the decorating, Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus.  Take time to reflect on what it would be like if Jesus Christ never visited this planet, or if there was no Bethlehem, no manger, no Savior.  What would life be like then?  That was the exact question King Solomon considered in the Book of Ecclesiastes.  And the answer he came up with was that life without God at the center and Christ at the core is "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless."

By the grace of God, that is not our description of life.  The Christian’s life does have meaning and purpose and joy… and all because of Jesus Christ.  But if from time to time we think along the lines of "what if God didn’t," it makes us rejoice all the more that He did…

So, roughly three weeks to go before Christmas.  Undoubtedly we’ve all got lots to do, but let’s not allow ourselves to become all consumed by it.  From now until then it would be wise to follow Isaiah’s counsel to us today.  Let us take time to feel the comfort of the Christ Child.  Let us take time to prepare our hearts to meet Him.  And let us take time to reflect on the goodness of God who sent us a Savior.

For us Christians, dealing with these things is what’s most important about GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS.  Amen.