The echoes of Christmas remind us of the Lord’s faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness...

This week we have been looking at an echo of Christmas from an event from history that is preserved and recorded for us in a section of a letter in the Old Testament of the Bible called the book of Isaiah. So far this week, we have looked on as the Jewish people shook from fear at the prospect of being invaded and conquered by the invading armies of the northern kingdom of Israel and the nation of Aram.

And as the invading armies approached, King Ahaz and the Jewish people were faced with a choice. And that choice was this: who were they going to trust? Would they trust in the Lord? Or would they place their trust in the nation of Assyria, who were the Jewish people’s hated enemy. And as King Ahaz faced a potential invasion of the nation that shook him to the core of his being with fear, that the prophet Isaiah approached king Ahaz as the king was preparing for the defense of Jerusalem to deliver a message from the Lord.

Lord’s message to King Ahaz through the prophet Isaiah, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “Do not fear these two armies that are plotting together to conquer you and set up a puppet king in place of you, because this plan of theirs will never happen. This plan will never happen because the nation of Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel will soon be conquered themselves. As a matter of fact, within 65 years the nation of the northern kingdom will no longer be Jewish. So do not place your trust in the Assyrians, place your trust in me. But if you do not trust me, if you trust the Assyrians, understand this; you surely will not last”.

In addition, the Lord invited the king to ask for a sign from the Lord to demonstrate that He would do what the prophet promised him that the Lord would do. King Ahaz responded to the invitation to test the Lord by trying to give the appearance of trusting the Lord by refusing to test the Lord. However, the reality was that King Ahaz refused to test the Lord because King Ahaz had already made up his mind to not trust the Lord. The king had already decided that he would place his confident trust in the nation of Assyria instead of the Lord.

And it was this decision by King Ahaz that signaled the beginning of the end for the Jewish people of the southern kingdom. However, while King Ahaz and other leaders of the Jewish people would continue to demonstrate a lack of trust in the Lord, that did not mean that the Lord was done with the Jewish people. Instead, it is at this point that the Lord, through the prophet Isaiah, made a proclamation and a promise that served as an echo of Christmas.

The prophet Isaiah’s words that are recorded for us in Isiah 7:14 are some of the most often cited words during the Christmas season: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. However, these very familiar words are only a part of what the Lord had to say to King Ahaz through Isaiah.

The prophet Isaiah’s prediction and proclamation, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “so, it’s not enough for you to test the patience of men. Instead you want to test My patience by refusing to place your trust in Me and in My promises to you. Well, I will give you a sign anyways, whether you want it or not. A virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. And before the child has reached an age that he can understand the difference between good and evil, both of these nations that you fear will cease to exist. And this child will eat curds and honey because I, the Lord, will deliver the Jewish people from the threat you face in spite of your unwillingness to trust in Me.”

And just one chapter later, we see the fulfillment of this prediction and proclamation in Isaiah 8:1-4. The Lord command Isaiah to take a tablet, and in the presence of two witnesses, Uriah the priest and a man named Zechariah, write the phrase “swift is the booty, speedy is the prey”. After following the Lord’s command in the presence of these two witnesses, Isaiah became engaged to a woman who was a prophetess and who was a virgin. Most scholars and historians believe that Isaiah’s first wife died after giving birth to his first son.

After marrying this prophetess, Isaiah approached his wife, which is another way to say that he had sex with his wife. Isaiah’s wife became pregnant and subsequently gave birth to a son, who he named Maher-shalal-hash-baz. Isaiah’s son would be the fulfillment of the sign that the Lord would give to the Jewish people. And before the child reached the age of two, in 732 B.C. the nation of Assyria plundered both the nation of Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel.  And ten years later in 722 B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel would be conquered and led into captivity by the Assyrian Empire.

Now a natural question that could arise here is “Well Dave, I was always told that this was a prediction about the virgin birth of Jesus on Christmas. But how can this be about Jesus is you are saying that this prediction was already fulfilled over 700 years before Jesus showed up?  So is this verse about Jesus or not?” If that question is running through your mind, I just want to let you know that you are asking a great question.

And my response to your question is this: Isaiah 7:14 was a prediction and proclamation about Jesus and what would happen that first Christmas. And Isaiah 7:14 was a prediction and proclamation about how the Lord would deliver the Jewish people in Isaiah’s day. You see, the child of Isaiah and his second wife that would serve as a sign of a deliverance in the face of the Jewish people’s unfaithfulness was a foreshadowing of another child. This child was the foreshadowing of another child who would be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to send a greater deliverer, who would arrive in a more miraculous fashion, to provide a greater deliverance for humanity in the face of humanities unfaithfulness to the Lord.

You see, while King Ahaz and the Jewish people of the southern kingdom of Judea placed their confident trust in the nation of Assyria instead of the Lord, that trust would be misplaced. And that misplaced trust in Assyria would have devastating consequences for the southern kingdom of Judea, as we see back in Isaiah 7:18-25:

 In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹ They will all come and settle on the steep ravines, on the ledges of the cliffs, on all the thorn bushes and on all the watering places. ²⁰ In that day the Lord will shave with a razor, hired from regions beyond the Euphrates (that is, with the king of Assyria), the head and the hair of the legs; and it will also remove the beard. ²¹ Now in that day a man may keep alive a heifer and a pair of sheep; ²² and because of the abundance of the milk produced he will eat curds, for everyone that is left within the land will eat curds and honey. ²³And it will come about in that day, that every place where there used to be a thousand vines, valued at a thousand shekels of silver, will become briars and thorns. ²⁴ People will come there with bows and arrows because all the land will be briars and thorns. ²⁵ As for all the hills which used to be cultivated with the hoe, you will not go there for fear of briars and thorns; but they will become a place for pasturing oxen and for sheep to trample.

Here we see the prophet Isaiah proclaim that there would be a day when the Lord would whistle for the nations of Assyria and Egypt to come and devastate the Jewish people of the southern kingdom of Judea. And these invading nations, like flies and bees, would be everywhere, there would be no escape. The Jewish people would be humbled and humiliated, as when someone had their head shaved as a sign of disgrace. The Jewish people would be deported, and the land would be depopulated so that just a few cattle and livestock would be able to provide for the few people that would be left. The land would return to wilderness where weapons would be necessary to defend against attacks from wild animals.

And from 732 B.C. to 701 B.C., the Assyrian Empire would be a menace to the Jewish people. Eventually, the Assyrian Empire would be conquered by the Babylonian Empire, which would then invade the Jewish people and in 586 B.C. conquer the nation and lead them into captivity. Yet it is here, in this event from history, that we discover a timeless echo of Christmas that serves as a reminder to humanity throughout history. And that timeless echo is this: The echoes of Christmas remind us of the Lord’s faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness.

You see, it is in this event from history that we see the Lord demonstrate His faithfulness in the face of the Jewish people’s faithlessness. It is in this event from history where the Lord would deliver the Jewish people in the face of their unfaithfulness that would serve as an echo of the promise of another child. It is in this event from history that we see an echo of a promise of a child who would serve as a sign from the Lord of a deliverer, who the Lord would send to deliver humanity in the face of their unfaithfulness.

An echo of another child who would be the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to send a greater deliverer, who would arrive in a more miraculous fashion, to provide a greater deliverance for humanity in the face of humanities unfaithfulness to the Lord. And it is this echo of Christmas that serves to remind us that the Lord provides humanity the opportunity to be delivered and rescued from their selfishness and rebellion in the face of our faithlessness to the Lord, not because of our faithfulness to the Lord.

Because that is what Christmas is all about. Christmas is about the Lord’s faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness that has echoed throughout human history.

However, the Lord’s faithfulness in the face of our faithlessness is not the only echo of Christmas. Next week, we will uncover another echo of Christmas...