FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture References: Isaiah 6:1-5; Luke 2:8-14

Peace and Justice – Continued

While our text does not mention justice explicitly, it certainly is implied. There can be no peace without justice. The Bible knows this well since justice is one of its overriding themes.

Those great eighth-century prophets spoke powerfully about justice. Hear Amos, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). God would not accept worship that did not issue in justice. God would not accept Sabbath worship from men and women who during the week had lied in the marketplace, exploited the weak, and taken advantage of the poor. He said: “Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen” (Amos 5:23).

Micah was just as emphatic about justice, hear him: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

Jesus was better known as a prophet than in any other way, and He, like all prophets, was concerned with justice. He said to the religious leaders of His day, “You . . . have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23). I have always been interested in the fact that Jesus put justice or just-ness at the top of His list.

Why is justice so important to men of goodwill? Justice gives dignity and worth to people. It will not allow people to be turned into tools and things, will not allow them to be means to an end. They are the end. It champions the equity and rights of people and will not allow them to be exploited. And we are to practice justice because God is just.

God is a moral God who has built ethical principles into the structure of His universe and these moral laws are just as strong and binding as the laws of our physical universe. They have a cutting and jagged edge. We can bruise and destroy ourselves on them.

If I live on the slope of a mountain, I have to come to terms with the physical laws that govern the mountain. If I am careless, I can freeze in the winter, and when snow melts in the spring and the floods come, I can be washed away by them. That is very obvious, but what is less obvious and yet just as real is that the ethical laws of life are equally as demanding and unrelenting. We can destroy ourselves on them. We must learn that justice and goodwill are indispensable for peace.

The Christmases of our time need peace more than other Christmases of history. The shadows of conflict and thus poverty fall across the landscape of our world. Let us work and pray for peace. Whatever our agendas are, let peacemaking head them all. If we can’t have peace in our time, we can’t have anything else.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Isaiah 6:1-5; Luke 2:8-14

Caring and Compassionate

Such a God gives us confidence for life. You know He is in charge of things. And when history is like a stream, overflowing its banks destructively, as ours is, we can be sure that God will assuage those angry waters, pulling them back into their channel, and that He will guide that stream to its appointed sea. This is God’s world and He will see that it fulfills the purpose for which He has created it.

Yet, God is not so high above us that He is out of touch with our earth. Isaiah heard God saying, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). But God does more than touch earth with His feet. He is present redemptively in His world, and there is no nook or corner where He is absent.

After Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush, God said to Moses, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians” (Exodus 3:7–8).

He is the God who comes down to show concern for poor, oppressed, and enslaved people. God comes down as a liberator and redeemer.

Christmas is about God who comes down to be with His people, to set them free and liberate them. The Child of Christmas would be called Immanuel “which means, God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

Never has heaven bent so near to earth, never has God stooped so low to our need as at Christmas. Never has earth lifted its paltry hands in such hope as at Christmas.

Peace and Justice

Heaven and earth! They are held together at Christmas. It is not only glory to God in the highest, it is peace among men of goodwill with whom God is well pleased.

Christmas will not let our faith be too ethereal, spiritual, and faraway. It keeps us fastened to our hard and mundane world. It talks about peace to men who often hate, fight, and kill. We are pugnacious people. There have been more years of war in our sordid history than years of peace. Almost every year has had a war raging somewhere in our world.

Yet, we never give up the dream of peace. Before the war is over we are making plans for peace. We dream of peace when there are no signs of it.

Isaiah lived through such a time when the shadow of the great Assyrian Empire lay across his little land. He could almost hear the marching of Assyrian armies in the distance. It was a time thoroughly inhospitable to peace. There were no signs of peace to be seen anywhere. Yet in this dark time, Isaiah dreamed of peace. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References: Isaiah 6:1-5; Luke 2:8-14

Never has anyone spoken more eloquently of great religion than did the heavenly host on that first Christmas. They sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14).

Great religion is concerned with heaven and earth, God and people, people in relation to God and to each other. Great religion is spiritual and ethical, personal and social, individual and corporate. It encompasses the whole of life.

High and Lifted Up

It is glory to God in the highest. He is the great transcendent God, lifted high above all things He has made. He is not a prisoner of His creation nor lost in its processes. He is not caught in our narrow time frame nor limited by our geographical boundaries. His dwelling place is mystery and He walks in an unapproachable light.

Isaiah in his transforming experience in the temple encountered no little god. He tells us, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). This God was not caught in the tangled web of life so familiar to Isaiah. His voice was not drowned out by the raucous voices of earth. He was lifted high above it all.

No one has written more movingly of the transcendent God than Isaiah. He had the right to write that way about God since that is the way he had experienced Him. In the fortieth chapter of his book, Isaiah speaks of God who measures the waters in the hollow of His hand, marks off the heavens with a span, stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He weighs the mountains in scales (see Isaiah 40:12, 22).

The psalmist shares Isaiah’s eloquence in describing this great, transcendent God. He speaks of God who makes the clouds His chariots and rides on the wings of the wind (Psalm 104:3).

Job felt the majesty and mystery of God. “Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14).

Our universe is so vast. It seems to fade away into infinity. Yet, being a created order it must have limitations. Our finite minds cannot grasp those boundaries, nor our most powerful telescopes find them. Wherever they are God stands above them like a craftsman stands above the thing he has created. He made the universe and established its boundaries.

We need to constantly remind ourselves how important this kind of God is for our worship. We pray best and worship best as we stand on the frontiers of mystery. Indeed, unless we stand there, sooner or later, we cease to pray and fail to worship. We do not worship our explanations nor pray to those things we can understand. We worship the God who dwells in mystery yet who has let us know that He is loving and trustworthy. Such a God Christmas has revealed; such a God Jesus has disclosed.

It is glory to God in the highest. Glory is brightness, splendor, radiance, majesty, and magnificence. Such a God inspires us to worship Him, to offer Him praise and adoration.

Possibly no generation has needed to recapture the sense of the transcendent God more than our own. So much mystery has fled our world. Vaulted archways of other years lie broken at our feet. The ceilings of our lives are oppressively low. Our children look up into a brilliant heaven and think, There is where we put our satellites. They are not moved to exclaim, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1, 9).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.