We all know the Christmas story - almost everyone can tell you the basic outline - Christian, non-christian, it has become so culturally well known that it is celebrated in some fashion world over.
Why? Because it is a good story - the narrative is compelling - it has all the ingredients of a box-office success. Angelic Baby - Check, Cute farmyard animals - check. Kings with gifts, angels in the sky, vengeful Herod - check, check, check.
Without taking away from this narrative - which is compelling because God designed it to resonate with us - I want to challenge you - there is a more powerful way to approach this story.
If all we takeaway is what we see on Christmas cards and in nativity scenes we are just getting a snapshot - and ultimately the snapshot, cute as it might be, even compelling as it can be does not have power - unless it brings us to a place of change.
The story of Christ's birth is also active and alive. More than a snapshot. We are in the middle of this story.
This purpose to the story is still being outworked - The Christmas story is fundamentally about Christ coming to earth to create a way for us to have a relationship with God - and this is not a completed story.
Yes - Christ was born, died and has made a way. But the work for us is still ongoing.
We are still in the middle. He has opened a way for us, but we are still living out the result of what that means for us - here day by day - receiving what Christ has already done for us.
It has meaning, because the ‘Better Story’ is not just a more compelling narrative, a better ‘movie’ - although the Story of the Bible is that, it is not just a ‘Better Plan’ for all of creation - a God given completion to the story that starts at creation - although it is that. It is also a ‘Better Story’ for you and for me - right here, right now. In the middle. The Christmas story is about enabling us to live lives that put Christ right at the center of our story.
When Isaiah spoke the words that we read in chapter 9 verse 6, he spoke to a nation that was in deep need. God's chosen people lacked direction, they lacked the ability - the power to control their own destiny, they lacked stability and certainty as enemy empires stood to strip them of their lands and wealth and they lacked harmony and peace inside the kingdom and out. This was a people who had over generations turned from God - their enemies surrounded them and grew more powerful each day - their kings looked away from the Godly purpose given to them. Still Isaiah speaks to a solution. A messiah will come, and he will bring direction, power, certainty and harmony.
Christ would come and would be called 4 things:
Wonderful Counselor
A counselor here means advisor - someone who comes alongside us and brings us direction.
When we are lacking in direction - Christ is the answer. He gives us great advice. He provides us with the direction we need.
Mighty God
Our God is mighty - this son born to us is powerful - able to change our world. He does not lack the ability and agency to turn our life stories around. When we lack the ability to change the things that need change - like we often do, we know that God is Mighty! Our God is powerful. He can change our circumstances.
Everlasting Father
Our God is unchanging - the proclamation here, the promise is that he will bring stability - certainty. In a world that will not stop changing. He is true to his nature, unchanging, un-shiftable - reliable. Eternal.
Our world may shift and change - but He doesn’t. From the beginning of time - until the end he is the same God - all of his promises are true.
We can rely on God’s promises - because he is unchanging. He brings certainty to our worlds.
Prince of Peace
This world is short on Harmony - the whole way our society is set up is to compete, we struggle against each other and increasingly in this age we find ourselves at war within - lacking internal Peace.
Jesus is the prince of peace. A life with Christ brings Harmony. Both internal and external. In ourselves and in our relationships.
What does this all mean for us? For our story?
We can accept that Christ the son, born on Christmas Day is all these things - just as Isaiah proclaimed he would be - and still not see the change in our own story.
Because this proclamation has a portion that we miss.
The key is in the part of the verse we skip over.
We see the Son is born part at the beginning and understand this means Jesus, we see the names given at the end, Wonderful Counselor and so on and understand his nature.
But what we sometimes miss is the phrase ‘The government shall be on his shoulders’ We skip over this because we don’t think it is speaking to us.
Here the word ‘Government’ is ‘Misrah’ in the original Hebrew, meaning ‘Sovereignty’ or ‘Dominion’
So perhaps we have read this as reference to Christ displacing our rulers? That is certainly what Jews were hoping for when they awaited the Messiah. Or perhaps we can think it means that these things will happen when the ‘Kingdom of God’ finally comes into its final complete form at the end of the book of revelations.
Actually what this phrase conveys should be read as ‘Christ will be given lordship.’
So then we have a proclamation a promise - with a condition.
Let's put it all together:
A messiah will be born,
He will be given lordship: and in the things he is lord over we will see: Direction, Power, Certainty and Peace.
This is the Better Story - not just the Christmas narrative - but the better story for our lives. This is the key that unlocks the promise.
The promise is for us in the middle - right here right now. But it relies on us - instead of holding on dominion and power over our own world turning lordship over our whole lives to Christ.
So we can ask - what does the middle of our stories look like?
Does it look like Christ being given Lordship - or do we want to hold onto some of that sovereignty ourselves.
Without Christ at the center.
We can live life content that we ‘have it all in hand’ - or we can be ‘holding it all together’ or sometimes ‘just holding on’. All of these rely on our own strength - our own ability and our own sovereignty. Our own limited POWER over our own lives. When we set ourselves up as lords of our own lives - we can only expect to see outcomes built on our own shaky ability.
All of this is in our own strength.
Instead the prophet Isaiah here is indicating that there is a better story. A better way - and here is the second key, having come humbly to the conclusion that we can’t do it ourselves we are called to submit to the lordship of Christ, putting the ‘government’ the ‘power’, the ‘sovereignty’ the ‘lordship’ over our lives in his hands. And as we do so we move instead to saying ‘He has my life in his hands.’ ‘He is holding my world together.’ And ‘He will lift me up.’
Let me ask you:
Are you lacking direction?
I know when I have lacked direction - I have called on God to provide direction.
Instead Isaiah says invite God to govern - give him Lordship. The direction will follow.
Do you need power to change your world?
Instead of asking for power to change your world - invite God to govern - give him Lordship. The change will follow - in his power, not yours.
Are you uncertain? Is change buffeting you?
Instead of asking for certainty and stability - invite God to govern. His lordship brings eternal stability - built on his nature, which never changes.
Do you lack harmony - do you need peace?
God give me peace!
No! My prayer is: God govern my world! His Lordship brings harmony.
Let these be the themes for our life stories - so that here in the middle we can know how this is going to play out. Yes the events might surprise us, but we can shed the anxiety - because we can have direction, power, certainty and peace.
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