Today we enter into Advent, a time in the
church year where we look back to the coming of Jesus, our saviour, and ahead
to his return. But it’s not a passive time of year, it’s about actively
waiting, working to prepare the world for Jesus’ return as we work to establish
God’s kingdom deeper into our world, our culture and society through the
presence of the church. Christmas is a wonderful time to concentrate again on
who Jesus is and his love for his people, unfortunately we too often get
sidetracked by the sentimental images of a baby in a manger surrounded by cute
animals, instead of recognizing how much Jesus gives up in coming to earth as a
baby and born in such a humble and basic setting.
This Advent we are going to take time to focus on who
Jesus is by reflecting on the names and titles that Isaiah gives us about who
the Messiah, our saviour is. “For to us a child is
born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he
will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
This child is the Immanuel Isaiah spoke of earlier on, Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord
himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a
son, and will call him Immanuel.” Judah is now just a minor nation,
living in humiliation and fear as Assyria, then Egypt and finally Babylon rule
over Judah.
Then comes
the humiliating destruction of
Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 BC when the great temple of Solomon, the house of
God is demolished and many Israelites are taken into captivity and slavery into
Babylon. God allows this all to happen as a consequence to ignoring his
commands and not protecting the poor, widows and orphans among them, but God
doesn’t give up on his people, instead we hear God promising a Messiah who will
come to save his people. The son is described as coming during a time of
humiliation; Isaiah offers hope, pointing to the coming of the Messiah in
Isaiah 9:2 “The people walking in darkness have seen a
great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”
The light is not coming out of the world, but coming into the world, we cannot
find salvation and hope in ourselves, it always comes from outside ourselves,
from Jesus.
When we look
at what’s going on today, there’s
violence, injustice, abuse of power, homelessness, refugees seeking safety as
they run from oppression, families torn apart, drug abuse and addictions, and
more. We walk in darkness, in ignorance surrounded by evil, looking for
solutions to cure the evil and the suffering in our world. We turn to the
wisdom of science or political saviours to save us, to free us from the evil
that is so prevalent. We look to what is in the earth or in ourselves for hope,
but things never seem to really change. The wisdom needed to restore the world
and bring healing, hope and peace can only come from outside the earth, from
the child who is born in a manger, a child who has come from heaven to bring
light and hope. We need someone divine to come and save us because we’re unable
to save ourselves or solve the sin that infects our world, this is why Jesus
comes to deal with sin and save us from it through the wisdom of the cross.
Wonderful
Counsellor is the first title Isaiah gives
the coming Messiah in 9:6. In this title, wonderful
is tied to the divine, miraculous. Counselor points
to astounding insight, understanding and wisdom. The people hear the Messiah
will be like King Solomom; given great wisdom by God, wisdom so astounding that
the Queen of Sheba decided to check out this king. Even today, we benefit from
King Solomon’s wisdom in the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs;
books about what a wise life is. This coming counsellor will have God given-wisdom
about life and God.
This
counsellor is divine, coming from God.
This is no ordinary person. John tells us at the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through
him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In
him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The
Word is Jesus and echoes back to creation and to Jesus’ role in creation,
revealing Jesus as God. To the Greeks the Word was about wisdom; and then there’s
the echo back to the light coming and shining into the darkness from Isaiah.
As you get
to know Jesus through the Gospels, the first 4
books in the New Testament, you see how often eyewitnesses react to Jesus with
wonder. Mark 6:1–2, “Jesus left there and went to his
hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came,
he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where
did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been
given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing?” In Luke
13, when Jesus healed woman, Jesus challenges the wisdom of the religious
leaders, “The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites!
Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and
lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set
free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When he said
this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all
the wonderful things he was doing.” People are amazed at Jesus’ wisdom
and miracles. This began already when Jesus was 12 and his parents found him in
the temple listening to the teachers of the Law and asking insightful questions.
Everyone there was amazed at Jesus.
When we look
at Jesus as the wonderful counsellor, at
the wisdom he teaches and lives out, we discover that Jesus’ wisdom and counsel
is not abstract or theological, but deals with the basics of life, summed up in
loving God with everything you are and have and loving
your neighbor as yourself. Wisdom is about how to live well and wisely
with each other, how to make it through life well. It’s about being focused
outside ourselves, creating compassionate communities where everyone counts since
they all count to Jesus and God. Paul gets this, Colossians 2 he writes, “I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for
those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally. My
goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they
may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know
the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
We look to
Jesus for wisdom. If you’re going to a counsellor, you
want someone who understands what you are going through, someone who cares
deeply for you. When you go to a support group like BILY or AA, NA or divorce,
grief support group, the power in the group comes from everyone there knowing
exactly what you are living through because they’re in the same place. This is
why we can go to Jesus, because as God, he became human to experience life as we
do, with all its joy and sorrow. To many people, Jesus seems foolish instead of
wise, “the message of the cross is foolishness to those
who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… God
was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who
believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we
preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than
human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
This is why
Jesus sends us his Spirit, the Advocate
or Counsellor, to testify to us about who Jesus is, reminding us of Jesus’
teachings and life so that we can live life well and wisely; filled with hope
and love, in confidence that no matter how dark things may be, the light has
come from heaven to earth to bring salvation and give us wisdom for life. As
Tim Keller puts it, “Jesus is the divine
Light of the world, because he brings a new life to replace our spiritual
deadness, because he shows us the truth that heals our spiritual blindness, and
because he is the beauty that breaks our addictions to money, sex and power. As
Wonderful Counsellor he walks with us even into and through the shadow of
death, where no other companion can go. He is light for us when all other
lights go out.”
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