Unexpected (Isaiah 7:10-14)
Rev. Peter Heckert
12/18/22 

+ Grace to you, and peace, from God our heavenly Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. + Amen.

The text for our meditation on this fourth Sunday in Advent comes from our Old Testament text, especially where God speaks through Isaiah, “… the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Here ends our text; my dear Christian friends …

He may have been an unbeliever, but Ahaz was still king of Judah. And he was freaking out. He had heard how the Assyrian war machine was on the move; worse still, they had allied with their turncoat brothers to the north, Samaria, also known as Israel. His worst fears came to fruition when Rezin and Pekah, the kings of these respective nations, “came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it.” There was some reprieve, since they couldn’t yet mount an attack, but Ahaz knew it was just a matter of time. Isaiah tells us that “the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” No doubt, their fate was sealed, and their annihilation was assured.

YHWH Sabaoth, the Lord of heavenly armies, had a different idea in mind. He had promised long ago that His promised Anointed One, the Seed of woman who would crush the head of the serpent, would come from the tribe of Judah. There’s no way that He would allow His promise to be extinguished at the whims of ambitious pagan kings. Thus, He sent His prophet Isaiah to Ahaz with strict instructions: “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you … thus says the Lord God: ‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass ….’”

No doubt, this sounded too good to be true to Ahaz, and YHWH knew this. Thus, He tells Ahaz to ask for a sign, regardless of what it is, that will give him the confidence and assurance that the God of his fathers was with him and would not let him fall. … You’d think that someone as shaken as Ahaz would leap at the chance to put the Lord God to the test. But that’s not what happens. Ahaz is an unbeliever, but he knows enough of the Yahwehist culture to know how he thinks a faithful Judahite would respond. He answers in false piety, “I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test.”

Needless to say, YHWH is not fooled. Whether Ahaz wants it or not, whether he believes it or not, YHWH will remain faithful in spite of the king’s faithlessness, and He will give the king a sign – actually, He’ll give him two. Luther explains: “…one is hidden, the other open. … the first one does not apply to Ahaz, because he did not live to see it, but the second does. But since he now resists the Word of God and refuses a sign, how can his faith be strengthened? … Nevertheless, it is a sign of lifting up and building up and strengthening for those who believe.”

YHWH was promising that, in short order, Judah would be redeemed from her current troubles – about the same length of time as a woman’s typical gestation and weaning of the child. He would deliver Judah from the two kings threatening them; in fact, those people themselves would be swept up and scattered into exile. However, it is the second promise – the framing device of the first – that we examine today. Who knows how Ahaz reacted when he heard the promise that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” but we do know the promise itself is incredibly unexpected. 

Without getting into the birds-and-bees discussion, suffice it to say, a new flesh in this world typically comes about by two becoming one; the fact that this doesn’t happen and the natural order of things is upset here, that’s shocking. The fact that the woman who conceived is a virgin – and yes, we do mean virgin, as in a woman who has not yet engaged in sexual intercourse – is also shocking. But the most shocking element of this entire prophecy is that the offspring of the virgin’s womb … is Immanuel. That name means “God with us.” He’s the God who has deigned to dwell with His people in a clearly physical manner. And there can be great comfort, or great terror, in this.

To sinful mortals, there is nothing in all of creation more terrifying than holiness. Isaiah himself bemoaned his existence in God’s holy presence, saying, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” To be in the presence of the Holy One as a sinner is to invite judgment, especially for the unbeliever, and judgment for any sinner is a sentence of death.

The one who believes, however, hears this sign of Immanuel, of the Holy One Himself coming to be with His people in theophanic form … and accepts it as a great comfort. Ahaz did not believe this. His descendent, however, did accept YHWH’s promise of Immanuel. Joseph of Nazareth heard the words of the angel of YHWH, and he believed them: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew then explains, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us).” 

At long last … the time had come. The sign given to Ahaz centuries prior was coming to pass. Immanuel, God with us, was imminent. He would be born to this young mother, this unassuming earthly father. Royalty in poverty. Godhead in frail human flesh. But the purpose for His unexpected birth … that was most unexpected of all. Immanuel was not merely born to live amongst His people … but to die for them, to rescue them from the just penalty for their sin. Immanuel, God with us, would die the death we sinners deserve … and demonstrate His divinity by rising from the dead three days later. As John puts it in his gospel account, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” For all who trust this sign of Immanuel, His incredible birth, His death on the cross, His resurrection from the dead, and His inevitable return to judge and restore, none of this is … unexpected.

+ In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. + Amen.