Unto us.
Advent 4A - Isaiah 7:10-16, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-25
Handel’s Messiah is my favorite music in Advent and Christmas time. This year, listening to the chorus based on Isaiah 9:6, I heard it differently. I heard the word “us.”
Unto us a child is born . . . Isaiah 9:6
I remembered friends of mine when they were parents-to-be. Early in their pregnancy, they started child-proofing their home. Everything needed to be vetted for safety. Everything: crib, pacifiers, toys, cords, outlets, furniture, car seats . . . Anything unsafe was removed or changed.
They made their home safe. They made the car safe. For that child, we wanted the world to be safe. Safe crib. Safe food. Safe shelter. Safe medicine. Safe gun laws. Safe schools. Love.
Unto us.
What if we understood that every child is born to us, and that we need to make the world safe for them. What would we do first? How would it make the world different?
I have been reading about the ways Jesus’ contemporaries probably thought about the messianic age or “the Restoration.” For a first century Jew, the Restoration would be when all of God’s people were returned from exile, righteousness filled the world and the Temple was restored so that God could again dwell with Her people.
In Jesus’ day, some of those things had happened, but not all of them. Or not completely. Not all Judeans had returned from the Exile. There was a Temple but some felt it had been desecrated by Greek or Roman interference. And as in our day, there was some righteousness and justice, but not enough. Because of everything which was not yet right, Jesus’ contemporaries understood themselves to be living in an ongoing state of exile1 and they hoped for the Restoration of which the prophets had spoken.2
What might the Restoration look like to us? The world we imagine need not be limited to what the prophets or a first century Jew might have imagined.
I am wondering what the world would look like if we made it safe for the children. All of them. Every one of them, wherever they were born. All of the children in whom God is pleased to dwell.3
Christmas peace.
We can think of the Bible (Hebrew Bible and New Testament) joined by one meta-narrative of exile-and-restoration, beginning with humanity being exiled from the Garden for the same reason Israel is later exiled from the land: failure to “obey” God, or later keep covenant fidelity. “The plight of all humanity is exile from God. Israel’s experience is, therefore, all of humanity’s experience.” Piotrowski, Nicholas G. “Discern the Word and Understand the Vision:” Ongoing Exile in Second Temple Judaism” Criswell Theological Review n.s. 16/1 (Fall 2018) 21-42, 40.
“The Synoptic gospels operate within this restorationist framework and portray Jesus as its herald and executor… He regularly heals those in need and points to such healing as evidence that the restoration is coming through him.” Sloan, Paul T. Jesus and The Law of Moses. (Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan 2025) at 49.
It turns out the prophet Isaiah was imagining something very similar. “The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den… They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain…” Isaiah 11:8-9.
The Christmas break is here! SermonStarts will be back on January 9, the Friday before Baptism of the Lord. Thank you for reading. Have a joyous and safe holiday! You are always in my prayers of thanksgiving.
Christmas peace to you, Lily!