Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on December 21, 2025, Fourth Sunday of Advent. Based on Isaiah 7:10-16.
Let me start by reviewing where we are and what we’re doing. I’m working through the Old Testament texts this year, and in Advent, that means Isaiah. Isaiah was one of the major prophets. He lived and prophesied in Judah, particularly Jerusalem, during the eighth century BCE. The major regional power at the time was Assyria, who ultimately conquered the northern kingdom of Israel but fell short of conquering Jerusalem.
Today’s passage takes place about 15 years before Assyria invaded Israel and Aram. Still, the threat of a major superpower drove Israel and Aram to invade Judah. The “two kings” that Isaiah mentioned near the end of the passage were King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel. Ahaz was the king of Judah.
So that was the original context of Isaiah’s prophecies. But the hallmark of true prophecy is that it speaks to both the present conditions and eternal truths.
George Orwell was an English writer who lived in the first half of the twentieth century. He is best known for Animal Farm and 1984, which most of you have probably read or at least know in broad outlines. Animal Farm is a fable best read as an allegory for the rise of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union. 1984 addresses totalitarianism more broadly. Published in 1949, it speaks to the motivations and methods of totalitarian regimes like the Bolsheviks, Nazis, and other fascists that emerged in the 1920s and ‘30s. He was writing specifically about the conditions that led to World War II and that continued in other forms after the war. 1984 is a cautionary tale that may have helped the English-speaking world reject fascism in the early days of the Cold War. And yet, it still speaks to us today. Orwell’s dystopia included secret police, media control, words and concepts that were not allowed to be discussed, and widespread government surveillance—features that we can see in authoritarian governments around the world.
A decade later, the Civil Rights movement took form in the US. I see Martin Luther King, Jr., as a prophet of the highest order. His Letter from a Birmingham Jail is an excellent rebuttal to moderation in the face of tyranny, and his famous “I Have a Dream” speech continues to inspire millions of Americans. Yet both were fundamentally grounded in the conditions he was experiencing and witnessing all around him. He was speaking specifically to the reality of African-American oppression in the 1960s. This grounding, paired with the movement of the Holy Spirit, empowered his words to both inspire his followers and transcend their time and circumstances.
In the same way, Isaiah spoke to his current situation, yet his words live on to speak to our conditions today. Let’s look at his prophecy in its original context. Judah was under attack. The northern kingdom of Israel had partnered with the Syrian kingdom of Aram to invade Judah. Could Judah stand against those two armies? People had fears and doubts.
Isaiah went out to a place sometimes called Fuller’s Field, where laundry was being done or perhaps where new fabric was being washed as the final step in its creation. Ahaz didn’t want a sign, but God gave him one anyway through Isaiah’s words. He said, “This woman will bear a child.” He said that her child would be a sign that God is with us. That is, the armies arrayed against Judah would not be victorious, because God is on our side. How long? How long would Judah suffer under the enemies’ siege? Not long. The baby would be born, and soon after, before he was a toddler who could feed himself and knew right from wrong, the armies would be vanquished.
Yet it would be a false peace, a false prosperity. The baby, and by extension all Judah, would eat curds and honey. That sounds good, right? But perhaps that would be all they had. Perhaps the land would be devastated, and Judah would have to survive on what they could find in the wilderness, or on sour milk. Isaiah was a prophet who mixed hope with doom. He persistently reminded the king and the people of Judah that they would be punished for their iniquities, but that the punishment would be temporary. They would suffer from the devastation caused by the various invading armies, but would ultimately be restored.
Isaiah was largely correct. Oh, he had the timeline a little wrong, but he was correct that Israel and Aram would fail in their invasion, Assyria would fail in their invasion, and Judah would recover and be restored. Yet in other places, he prophesied that the covenant God made with David would be honored for all time and Judah would be an independent, holy nation ruled by David’s descendant. That turned out to be wrong. Judah persisted under David’s dynasty for another 150 years, but then was conquered by Babylon, never to return to its ancient glory.
After the exile ended, Jews were forced to reckon with the failed prophesies of Isaiah and others. They thought that their kingdom would be restored, but they remained a vassal state for hundreds of years. They achieved independence under the Maccabees, but that turned out to also be temporary. By the time of Jesus’s birth, the ancient prophecies could no longer be interpreted as foretelling a regular, worldly kingdom.
So, they re-interpreted Isaiah’s words to predict a different kind of kingdom and a different kind of king. Instead of a regular lower-case ‘m’ messiah, that is, someone anointed to be prophet, priest, or king, a normal thing that happened regularly throughout history, Isaiah and other prophets predicted a Messiah, with a capital M, the Anointed One who would restore the glory of God’s people. There were many different views on just who the Messiah would be and just what he would do. Some still held onto the idea of a worldly kingdom, and so many messianic movements arose to rebel against Roman occupation, all of which ended in bloodshed and destruction.
But others believed that the Messiah would institute a different kind of kingdom. They imagined that the Messiah would rule an eternal kingdom that transcends the evil and iniquity that they saw all around them. Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled this hope. During his life, many people thought he would lead a messianic movement like the others and rise up against Rome. Yet Jesus did none of that. He preached peace and reconciliation. He claimed that his kingdom is “not of this world.” He taught self-denial, forgiveness, and mutual support. He raised up the lowly and marginalized while chastising the rich and powerful.
Jesus was Emmanuel—a sign that God is with us, and God’s actual presence in the world. He was born in a time of turmoil to remind us all of God’s true nature. He was born in humble circumstances to remind us that Christ comes to us in the mundane, in the poor and oppressed, in those who live on the margins. He lived a simple life to remind us that we are promised abundant LOVE, not material abundance. He lived a life of service to demonstrate our call to mutual submission, serving and being served so that everyone can flourish. He died as he lived, a man of peace who refused to take up arms against those who rejected him. And he rose from the dead to demonstrate God’s transcendent power to conquer all of the sin and death of this world.
And yet, he did not come on clouds of glory to purge the world of evil and wickedness, as Daniel predicted. Instead, he ascended to heaven. Yet, he is still Emmanuel. Jesus Christ is still with us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, poured out upon his followers on the day of Pentecost and flowing through us all even now, two millennia later.
Jesus of Nazareth was a man who lived and died at the dawn of the common era, in an oppressed region of one of history’s greatest empires, a victim of the united forces of religious and government leaders who saw his message of hope, love, and equality before God as a threat to their power. Jesus Christ conquered sin and death and rules an eternal kingdom of peace, love, and reconciliation.
Yet we look around, and see that actually, the world order looks more like Rome’s empire of oppression than like Christ’s kingdom of love. What does that mean to us as Christians? Some say, in essence, that we need to fight fire with fire. The world is harsh and governed through power, so the church needs to be harsh and achieve power to impose our will on the world. But that is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught.
Instead, Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed: something small that grows and flourishes into something great. The kingdom of God is established not by force, but by persistent love. Not by vanquishing our enemies, but by reconciling with them. Not by destroying the wicked, but by healing them.
Christ ascended into heaven, leaving his Church to be his body. WE are Emmanuel. We are God’s presence in the world, a sign that God will always be with humanity. In fact, we are the only sign most people see. If someone is in crisis and looking for a sign that God still cares about them, the work that we do as a church may be that sign. Whether they are homeless or hungry, or grieving or in emotional turmoil, or striving to make a better life in the face of oppressive systems arrayed against them, we can be God’s presence in their lives and demonstrate that indeed God does care about them, that indeed God will provide for them and support their flourishing. We can be God’s hands and feet in the world, seeking those in need and doing God’s work, if only we see with God’s eyes.
Yet too often, we are like King Ahaz. We don’t really want to see with God’s eyes. Today’s passage opens with Isaiah challenging Ahaz to ask for a sign. Ahaz says that he won’t put God to the test, a disingenuous claim that reveals his faithlessness and his desire to trust his own wisdom instead of putting his faith in God. Isaiah reminds him that God is present whether we acknowledge Them or not.
We are all like Ahaz sometimes. We know what we want to do, and we don’t want God interfering in our plans. We don’t want to hear that we should leave a job that provides financial security at the cost of our soul. We don’t want to hear the cries of the poor and oppressed, who God desires that we would care for. We don’t want to know anything that might mean that we have to change the way we live, or who is in our life, or how we worship, or anything else. Change is hard—it’s so much easier to just keep doing something unsatisfying or even emotionally or physically draining than to listen for what God is calling us to do.
Or sometimes, we’re like Jonah. Ahaz tried to avoid hearing God’s will altogether. Jonah heard God’s calling loud and clear, and said “NO!” So often, we know what God wants us to do, but like a toddler we say, “NO I DON’T WANNA!” Change is hard, so even when we clearly know what God wants, we avoid doing it.
In one of the commentaries, I read, “When the church veers off in a direction of its own choosing, when it puts even survival ahead of God’s will, the path becomes murky.” We see that in practically every church and every denomination, with just a few exceptions. PC(USA) is losing members at a pretty good clip. Since our denomination was created in 1984, our total membership has declined from 3.1 million to 1.1 million. From 1984 to 2000, we averaged a decline of about 2% per year. Since 2000, the decline has just accelerated. Now we’re averaging more than 4% annual decline. I read a recent article that showed pretty much every Protestant denomination following the same trend, with only Assemblies of God and PCA actually growing. Even the Southern Baptist Convention has been declining since about 2008. What’s going on? I think we have collectively chosen comfort over looking for God’s signs and looking for ways to follow where Christ is leading.
Christmas is our annual reminder that Christ came to Earth to show us what it means to seek God’s will, to follow God’s signs, to live as God’s people. Jesus set an impossible standard, one that we can never achieve, but one to which we should always aspire. We are called to watch for God’s actions in the world and watch for ways to participate in the emergence of God’s kingdom. Whether we want a sign or not, God sends them to show us how best to support human flourishing.
Since Christ ascended and sent the Holy Spirit to energize us, we have been made living signs of God’s presence in the world. I leave you now with the famous words authored by Teresa of Ávila, a famous Christian mystic who reformed the Carmelite monastic order in the 16th century:
Christ has no body but yours,
Teresa of Ávila
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Amen.
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