Christmas Day

Pastor Robarge’s Sermon
Christmas Day, December 25, 2011

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I want to take you back to the text once again. It’s one of my favorite pieces of Scripture, primarily for this reason. Verse 52:7, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news.” Now it can be good for a lot of reasons. I don’t know if you woke up this morning thinking “I wonder what Pastor’s going to talk about in the message today.” Did anyone think about that? Alright, oh, I guess my wife did.

I don’t think you probably came to church thinking, “I think Pastor’s going to talk about feet today.” Did that come out of the blue because feet is what we’re talking about. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly like feet. Feet aren’t that pretty. I like to look at faces. I like to see eyes shining and a nice smile, but “how beautiful the feet?” Come on.

We’re looking at feet now in our society that are covered. We have socks and we have shoes. We have things that cover them up and make sure they’re all comfortable and nice and snug, but we’re looking at people who were walking through the dirt and through the mud with sandals on. And yet, still the prophet proclaims, “How beautiful the feet of the one who brings good news.”

So at least if you get nothing else from this message, you can go home today saying, “You know what? We learned about feet today and it’s exciting.” How beautiful the feet are the ones who proclaim the good news. This verse from Isaiah is one that God Himself delivers to Isaiah as a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ will be the one who delivers the good news to His people. God Himself will break through time and space to jump into His creation. There is no greater news than that.

And yet, if we look at what the people heard that day from the prophet, Isaiah, they weren’t really thinking of too far beyond the struggles they were experiencing. Isaiah, in this Chapter 52, was talking to a people who were in exile, so he’s either talking and proclaiming the truth to the people who were in Babylonia, who were in slavery, who were working day after day for a people who weren’t their own, or he was talking to the people back in Israel, the ones who were cut off, living in poverty, living day by day, not understanding when they were going to be fed next because there was an extreme drought. This is the message they heard that day because they, too, were in a world that existed where things weren’t the way they were supposed to be. They looked around and they said, “Things aren’t right. We’re not living in the land that we’re supposed to live in. We’re not with the people that we’re supposed to be. We’re poor. We’re hungry. We need.”

These things were right and so when Isaiah broke through with the message, a message that we hear today, a message that he says, “Give peace of the one who will bring good news who’s going to proclaim peace, who will bring good tidings, salvation.” This is something, a sweet message of victory to a people who were in defeat. It’s a message we all need to hear because we, too, can see that we live in a place where things aren’t the way they’re supposed to be.

If you look around us, we find there’s a lot of need, a lot of people who are hurting. Yet, this message itself can break through that, to be able to say God Himself has kept His promise this day and He sent a Savior. The Savior is for you all. The message itself breaks through to a people who have nothing. These people of Israel had nothing. They were divided. They were broken up. They were living in poverty and yet God says, “Here’s a message. I will save you. Salvation is yours. Your God reigns.”

That’s a message for us when we have nothing to bring to the cross. Throughout Scripture, it says that nothing we have is what God wants. None of our good works we can offer to God saying, “Hey, look at me. I am good.” It says all of those good things that we do, all the things we try to pile up and we try to call good, God says they’re nothing but filthy rags. “Don’t offer those things to me.” Why? Because those are things we try to build up for salvation, but the message of salvation doesn’t come by us offering things to God. The message of Christmas says that God brings His gifts to you. And He breaks through that moment and He says, “This is how I’ve delivered you.”

It’s a message for everyone, everyone who has been empty, everyone who has had nothing and yet, God says, “I am everything.”

The message continues. We find throughout this piece of Scripture in Isaiah, it says, “Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy. When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes. Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem.” He identifies they’re in a place where they’re low. But he says, “There will be a day that you burst into song with joy that is exuding from you, that just can’t be contained.”

How joyful were you this morning? You get up out of bed. It’s a little bit difficult for me. Coming off of Christmas Eve, we have a very busy time and there are a lot of people to come in and we have multiple different services and it’s no excuse, but I’m a little tired and I’m sure you are, too. Sometimes, when I wake up on Christmas Day, the first thing out of my mouth is not a word of joy. It’s a word of “Yawn, I’m tired. I don’t want to get up.”

And yet this word of joy this morning comes from a place where people are empty, where people have nothing. All of a sudden, joy extends from their hearts and explodes in a way that is unexplainable. Did you feel that joy this morning? Were you a part of that joy? Did you have to wake up your kids? Anybody? No.

That’s a part of it as we hear the message coming from Isaiah today as he speaks to a people, the people of Israel but a people you and me. When he says, “Return. Burst into songs of joy together,” that’s why we come here today on Christmas morning to burst into song together with joy proclaiming from our hearts. We rejoice knowing that God has stepped into the human condition and the Lord has then comforted His people. As it goes on in the last verse in Verse 10, “The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations.”

How many of you have ever, it was a long time ago, watched Popeye? Who watched Popeye? I love Popeye. I don’t know why. They still show it every once in awhile on TV now. But if you’re not familiar with Popeye, there was a cartoon and there were some movies, but I remember the old cartoons. Popeye was a sailorman, yep, and he would go about and he would sometimes get beaten up by some people. When the enemy, the guy, what’s his name? Brute. Bluto. When he would kind of get the overhand on Popeye, what would happen? Popeye would grab his can of spinach, yes, and he would crush it and pop it open and, all of a sudden, the spinach would shoot out and go in his mouth and what would happen? His sleeves would roll up and all of a sudden, you see these big muscles that take the shape of an iron or some kind of ship or something and, all of a sudden, he just kind of destroys his enemy.

It kind of reminds me of that as I read through that verse, “The Lord will lay bare His holy arm before you.” He’s going to roll up His sleeve. He’s going to eat His spinach because it’s going to be some hard work. God Himself when He was sending His Son, Jesus, into the world, He said that’s going to be some hard work. I’m going to have to roll up my sleeves to step into this human condition. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m willing to do it.

We hear the message of salvation proclaimed 2,800 years ago to a people of Israel and it’s upon the same mountain that we hear the message. The good news is proclaimed to a people who are in need. We bring nothing to God, but He gives us a gift. We can stand upon that mountain as we look at in Romans, Paul takes this verse and he quotes it once again, “Not as a prophecy of Jesus Christ but as one that you and I must do today.” He says he puts on his running shoes and he’s the one who’s running now. He’s the one who’s proclaiming the good news.

The message of Jesus Christ wasn’t meant to be kept. It was meant to go to the highest place and shout it from the mountaintop. Last night, we sang a song, “Go Tell It On the Mountain.” “Go Tell It On the Mountain” is the hymn itself; the Scripture for it is this, “As we stand upon the mountains, as we proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to our world.” If we heard in the City of David a Savior has been born to you, He is Christ the Lord, that good news we can go upon the mountain. We can proclaim salvation. God reigns. He is victorious.

And then you, my friends, will have beautiful feet. Amen.