“For us a Child is born” (Isaiah 9:6)

Isaiah 9:2-7

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 24, 2017

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” In a way we are at an advantage in the northern hemisphere at this time of year. Our nights have grown darker. Winter solstice was just a few days ago—the longest night of the year. We look forward to brighter days ahead. Of course, Isaiah is talking about the spiritual darkness—the darkness of sin, evil, and death. And that too does not take too much imagination. Every day there is news of violence, the tragic loss of life, revelations of the abuse of power, injustice, and the ravages of poverty all around the world.

Tonight we see a great light! The light of Christ has been born in Bethlehem! The light shines through deep darkness. The darkness has not overcome it. Darkness cannot be heaped upon light. Light always disperses the darkness. The light of Christ always overcomes deep darkness. The Light is for us. The Light comes into the world through this Christ Child. He will say of himself, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

He is named Wonderful Counselor. Jesus will be Rabbi—teacher. He will explain the true meaning of Scripture. He will tell parables and stories to set us on the right path. His teaching will perplex the scholars. His counsel will instruct us in the true meaning of the Law. He will show us how to love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength and love our neighbor as he has loved us. He is wonderful because he fills us with the wonder of the Gospel—the good news that eternal God who takes on humanity. He steps down from his throne in heaven to become a baby wrapped in swaddling cloth in a manger. He is Wonderful Counselor.

He is Mighty God. He does great things for us. He heals diseases, gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the mute. He makes people walk again and walk for the first time. He goes to the Cross in the strength of his character and joy set before him. He overcomes our sin, death, and evil. He lays down his life for us, his friends. He rises again from the dead in the assurance of our forgiveness and eternal life. He is Wonderful Counselor. He is Mighty God.

He is Everlasting Father. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). They are one in substance, one in nature, one in purpose, one in mission. Jesus comes into the world to make all things new. He comes for us. He comes to bring us into the family of God. In his Baptism we are adopted as royal daughters and sons. We bear the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. We are children of God. We are heirs with him of eternal life. He is Wonderful Counselor. He is Mighty God. He is Everlasting Father.

He is Prince of Peace. He comes to extend his reign of peace. He comes to expand his Kingdom in our hearts and this beautiful and broken world. He comes to rule by the strength of forgiveness. He reconciles us to the Father. In him we have peace with God. The King of Peace tears down walls and builds bridges. He overcomes hostility and obstacles to our living in peace with one another. He heals old emotional wounds, restores broken relationships, and fills us up with love for one another. In his Kingdom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. We are all one in him (Gal 3:28). We are united together under the banner of peace—true peace and reconciliation and harmony.

He is Wonderful Counselor. He is Mighty God. He is Everlasting Father. He is Prince of Peace—for us. He is all these things for our good, our hope, and our eternal well being. He is, to put it very simply, for us. “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.” This is the great gift that keeps on giving throughout the year to the end of human history—this Child who comes wrapped up in swaddling bands of cloth. Isaiah gives us a vision of who this Jesus is. He unwraps God’s gift for us in these beautiful titles of the newborn King. And so we can live a lifetime continuing to unwrap the beauty and majesty of God’s gift. Praise God for the gift of his Son, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

To you this night is born a child.
Of Mary, chosen virgin mild;
This little child of lowly birth.
Shall be the joy of all the earth.

Ah, dearest Jesus, holy Child,
Prepare a bed, soft, undefined,
A quiet chamber set apart.
For You to dwell within my heart.

     ("From Heaven Above to Earth I Come" vv. 1 & 13)

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-24)

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 17, 2017

Our Scripture calls us to pray without ceasing. God wants us to have an unbroken connection with him. He wants his people to constantly pray—to pray always rejoicing and to pray giving thanks in all circumstances. We are to wake up with thanksgiving for a new day, to make our day straight for the way of the Lord during the day covering it with prayer, to let our prayers ascend before the Lord as incense and the evening sacrifice, and then prayerfully commend our bodies and spirits and all things to God as we lie down to sleep. Never stopping. No intermissions. No breaks. Unceasing prayer every day, every hour, and every moment awake or asleep.

It may seem that God wants us to drop out of school, quit our jobs, end our retirement and join a monastic order. You will remember, that’s what Martin Luther did. The call to prayer started at 3 a.m. and ended at midnight every day. This full day of prayer with sisters and brothers in Christ is powerful. I hope you have had the experience on a retreat or pilgrimage to devote your day to prayer. It is powerful. It is restful. And it releases a flood of peace.This is a call to unceasing prayer—prayer that continually flows from the mouths and hearts of God’s people. You may say, “I don’t have time for that kind of prayer.” Martin Luther is famous for saying, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours of my day in prayer.” He was too busy not to pray.

This is not simply a call to make more time to pray, however. It is a call to see the Christian life itself as a life of prayer—in all its forms. The Bible itself defines prayer very broadly using words like: Entreat, call, cry out, seek, inquire, ask, beseech, implore, wait on, hope, search, worship, praise, give thanks, rejoice, petition, confess, devote, commune, adore, intercede, lie prostrate, kneel, raise hands and many more. Our posture, the inclination of our hearts, our words, and our actions are all called to prayerful devotion. Our whole being is to turn toward God. Our lives are to flow from our relationship with him, from him, and back to him. “For from him and through him and for him are all things” (Rom 11:36). It is not about making more time for God but making more room for him in our hearts. It’s about being connected to God—to be in relationship with God. That is not a scheduling issue. That is an issue of the heart. It is exactly what John the Baptist was called to do—to be a voice crying out to people to come into the Light of Christ, to make way for the Lord as he comes into the world and into our lives, to turn from self-centeredness and worldliness to Kingdom-centered and godly lives.

The alternative is to feel disconnected to God. We may sometimes feel that he is absent. Or we become Sunday morning Christians and then agnostics or atheists for the rest of the week. The real tragedy is when we wander off God’s prayerful path. We forget our baptismal identity as children of God. We stray from the light of Christ into the shadows and what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “the agony of prayerlessness.” We cease praying. We start worrying. We stop trusting. We fill up with anxiety. We yield to the demands of this world. We become paralyzed by fear. We fall into the snare of sin. We are held captive by its power and ruled by the agony of prayerlessness.

Last week, I heard Amy Harkness’ niece Victoria tell a story about Amy’s father, Victoria’s grandfather. She asked him as he was nearing death and confined to his bed if he still prayed. “Of course,” he said, “I have to,” “But it’s not so much about talking as it is knowing the presence of God with me.” Prayer had become for him less about making requests and saying prayers as it did living in the light of Christ’s presence. It had become more about being in relationship with his Heavenly Father. Prayer may not change God. But it transforms us. And when we broaden our understanding of prayer—when we deepen our vision of a prayer-filled life, we will not want to cease praying. God is not calling for us to live under the burden of prayer but to lift our burdens through the gift of prayer.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.” It is an invitation to open ourselves up to the rich and abiding presence of God. God wants us to live in relationship to him always. He calls us to be forever connected to him. In a healthy relationship, we can express the full spectrum of our emotions. We are free to share the ups and the downs of life—in every stage of life. And we will never overwhelm or burden God. He calls us to cast all our cares and anxieties upon him because he cares for us (1 Pet 5:7). When we wake up we can open our eyes to the Kingdom’s presence and our lips to declare God’s praise. When we walk we can talk with God. We can think about our family and friends during the day but also lift them up in prayer. We can pray for our coworkers as we pass them in the hallway or go to that next appointment. We can pray for our communities, our city, our nation, and this world as we read or hear the daily news. Even if it is simply the refrain, “Lord, have mercy.” We can remind ourselves moment by moment that our lives are lived in the face of God who smiles over us and whose countenance radiates our lives with the light of Christ. There is nothing we do or say that cannot be immersed or sprinkled with the unceasing current of the Holy Spirit that flows from our Baptism.

When Jesus endured the agony of the Cross he did not endure the agony of prayerlessness. He prayed some of his best prayers while giving his life for the sin of the world: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.” “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Praying, entreating, and interceding from the Cross of Calvary and then rising from the dead in triumph. And so he comes again to make all things new—to usher his presence into our lives—to an even deepening relationship—to even greater connectiveness. And so we pray, “Amen. Even so. Come, Lord Jesus!”

“The Potter” (Isaiah 64:8)

Isaiah 64:1-9

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 3, 2017

Our Advent prayers are bold and urgent: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and come!” And we pray simply, “Come, Lord Jesus!” Today’s reading from Isaiah has a similar ring: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Isaiah remembers how God came down before. The pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night came down from heaven. This is how the Lord came before: as a luminous body on Mt. Sinai. He shook the mountains. Fear seized the hearts of God’s people. He gave the Ten Commandments. Now Isaiah prays for God to do the same thing for all nations—that God would gather his army, raise the heat, turn up the noise, and shake the world—that every human being would be obedient to God and worship him in spirit and truth. When we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We pray for the Lord of hosts to come in his glory, to roll back the heavens as a scroll, to judge the living and the dead, to right every wrong, and to make all things new.

But Isaiah remembers the fullness of who God is. He remembers that all of us are sinful even those of us who consider ourselves the people of God—especially if we call ourselves the people of God: “We have all become like one who is unclean,” the prophet says, “and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” “Stir up your power your power and come”—“Tear open the heavens and come down” to me the sinner—to all of us who live in this beautiful and broken world. Jesus himself says he came not for the righteous but for the sinner. Isaiah remembers this gracious God: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter, we are all the work of your hand.” Those hands we want to tear open the heavens are potter’s hands. And we are the clay. The Potter laid out the universe and shaped the stars, planets, and moons. He took the clay and dust of the earth and fashioned Adam—and all humanity—from the bottom up and breathed into his nostrils the spirit and breath of life. God continues his creative work. Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by the Potter. We are all his clay. He molds and shapes us into vessels of his glory. As his earthen vessels, we have purpose and usefulness in the Kingdom. A few months ago, Professor Tietz gave a group of us a tour of the Oriental Institute. We saw for ourselves the pottery of the day. Some is used for perfume, some for oil, wine, grain, water, and any number of uses. So God gives us many diverse, unique and useful gifts.

But it is also unsettling. It can even be painful. It one thing to ask for his hands to go to work in the world. It is quite another to invite his fingers to work in our individual lives. He confronts our sin and imperfections. The Potter puts us lumps of humanity on the kick wheel and spins us. He carves away what we don’t need and what’s not good for us—every weight and sin which clings so closely. He squeezes, presses, and pulls us into shape. Do we still want to pray, “Stir up your power and come”? Are you and I malleable? Or have we become hardened—hard-hearted like old Pharaoh who would not be shaped or changed by God. God is the master Potter. He just adds water, the Spirit, and the Word of Baptism to transform our dry, stony hearts into soft, moldable clay. “We are they clay, and you are our Potter.” “Soften me, mold me, shape me, transform me into a vessel of honor and usefulness for your Kingdom. Stir up your power and come.”



I love what Isaiah says about God in his prayer: “You did awesome deeds that we did not expect.” God does the unexpected. The Potter is not predictable. He is full of glorious surprises. He came down on the mountain to give the Ten Commandments. It was glorious, fearsome, and transformative. But it was also unexpected. As Christians, we should remember how unexpected it is for God to send his only Son into the world and take on human flesh. Stir up your power and come, indeed! He came from heaven to earth. The Eternal stepped into time and space to be born of the virgin Mary. The Potter took on clay. He is both an earthen and heavenly vessel. He came to stir things up. He challenged the people of God. He confronted the abuse of power—of religious and civil leaders. He confronted our sin and brokenness. He is the Potter who has come. His hands healed. His hands reshaped the world. Those potter’s hands were pierced on the Cross but they were also extended out to the world in acceptance and forgiveness. He stirred up his power and transformed the rock-hewn tomb from a symbol of death and decay to promise of eternal life and victory. He ascended into heaven at the right hand of the Father where he continues to stir up his power and come. By his Word and Spirit he makes all things new. We are not just inviting the Lord of glory into the world when we pray. We invite the Potter to reshape our lives here and now. We invite an artist and life-transformer—the Potter. We are the clay. He is the Potter. He makes all things new. Amen, come Lord Jesus.