The Eighth Day: Morning
Christmas for the Sinful (1)
O LORD, I will praise You;
Though You were angry with me,
Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me.
Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid.
Isaiah 12:1,2
Read Isaiah 12:1-6
Each Christmas we hear countless statements on what Christmas is “all about.” Someone invariably says Christmas is “all about” family or sharing or loving or giving or partying and so on.
When was the last time you heard someone say Christmas is all about sin? No one ever says that, but that’s exactly what Christmas is about. If there had been no sin, there would have been no need for Christ to come, and if Christ had not come, there would be no Christmas.
The prophecy of Isaiah contains what some scholars refer to as the “Book of Immanuel.” This small book begins with chapter seven and concludes with this twelfth chapter. This is a chapter about deliverance. Some think it describes nothing more than the joy the people of Judah would feel when they were finally delivered from the threat of conquest by the Assyrians.
While there can be no doubt that this hymn of praise was indeed a fitting response to that deliverance, we must go beyond it to the far greater deliverance that Christ came to provide. We have a scriptural precedent for doing this. The deliverance of the nation of Israel from Egypt, for instance, is used by the apostle Paul as a type or picture of the Christian’s deliverance from sin (1 Cor. 5:7).
In addition to that we must remember we are in the “Book of Immanuel,” in which the prophet looks beyond the political situation of the day to that time when God would come to dwell among His people through His Son, Jesus. No mere political deliverance can begin to compare with the deliverance Jesus came to provide for His people.
Each Christian can, therefore, look back on his or her salvation and say to the Lord the very same things that the prophet here records. First, the Christian can truthfully say to the Lord, “You were angry with me” (v.1).
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