Aren’t I too important to need Christmas?

At Christmas and New Year we often think about our lives:
“What impact have I had?”
“Am I useful?”
“Am I a success or a failure?”

We compare ourselves to others. We replay missed chances. We measure our worth.

In other words: you put yourself at the centre of your own history; and make yourself the arbiter of what really counts.

Self-importance does not just look like outward confidence. Sometimes it sounds strong: “I’m too important for all this religious rubbish.” Sometimes it sounds fragile: “I’m too rubbish and pathetic to matter.”

Both insist that my importance—or insignificance—defines reality.

Isaiah spent his entire ministry exposing that lie.

From the raw pride of chapter 2:

¹¹ The pride of mankind will be humbled,and human loftiness will be brought low;

To the quiet spiritual self-importance of chapter 65:

⁵ They say, ‘Keep to yourself, don’t come near me, for I am too holy for you!’

Whether loud or subtle, proud or despairing, self-importance is a defining sin Isaiah repeatedly preaches against.

And now, chapter 40 is Isaiah’s turning point. Where God doesn’t argue with our self-importance. His Word renders it irrelevant by declaring what is true:

1) God’s Word forgives us before we even trust it (vv. 1–2)
2) God’s Word comes to us from the outside before we grasp it on the inside (vv. 3-5)
3) God’s Word outlasts every story we tell ourselves (vv. 6-8)

Isaiah begins with objective truth. Before feelings. Before trust. Before we understand its relevance:

1) God’s Word forgives us before we even trust it (vv. 1–2)

Please look at v. 1

“Comfort, comfort my people,”says your God.

The Gospel is not advice or encouragement: It’s God’s legal verdict.

The word translated comfort here first appears in 1:24, where God says:

“Ah, I will be comforted against my foes;”

Where God’s anger against sin has been satisfied. That’s why in 12:1 Isaiah prophesies the people will say:

“Your anger has turned away, and you have comforted me.”

So when God says “Comfort, my people” …He’s not saying “Try to feel better” …He’s saying “The case is settled. The matter is over.”

Think about that family member, who doesn’t seem to care about Christ.

That child, or husband, or cousin, who only comes to church occasionally to keep you happy.

Or think about yourself… when it just seems like the church is the same old, same old message:

Not relevant. Not significant. Not important.

What is God’s response to that? It starts like this: “I forgive you.”

Not once you care, or as soon as you understand, or after you trust.

Isaiah goes on, v. 2:

² “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and announce to her…

God doesn’t wait for Israel to work out what he’s done and why it’s important.

This forgiveness doesn’t come through their own self-discovery, or their own thinking things through.

It’s delivered to them from the outside, as God’s Word is spoken to them.

He continues in v. 2:

that her time of hard service is over,

He promises freedom from the slavery of sin, He doesn’t give them instructions for self-improvement.

And the end of v. 2 show us why we underestimate this promise, and treat forgiveness as trivial:

her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.”

God doesn’t just forgive you, and now it’s your turn to do something. He replaces your sin with his blessing and grace, blessings and grace that overwhelm the previous harms you’d done to yourself.

God has so many good things to give you, freely by his grace. Justification is the forgiveness of our sins, so that we received the righteousness of God.

So, God treats us as righteous royalty — just as he treats his Son.

So much is hidden in these simple promises of Scripture. Listen to how Luther explains the prayer “Give us to today our daily bread” in the Large Catechism:

Let us outline very briefly how comprehensively this petition covers all kinds of earthly matters. Out of it a person might make a long prayer, enumerating with many words all the things it includes. For example, we might ask God to give us food and drink, clothing, house and farm, and a healthy body. In addition, we might ask God to cause the grain and fruits of the field to grow and thrive abundantly. Then we might ask God to help us manage our household well by giving and preserving for us an upright spouse, children, and servants, causing our work, craft, or occupation, whatever it may be, to prosper and succeed, and granting us faithful neighbors, and good friends, etc. In addition, we may ask God both to endow with wisdom, strength, and prosperity the emperor, kings, and all estates, especially the princes of our land, all councilors, magistrates, and officials, so that they might govern well and be victorious over… all our enemies, and to grant their subjects and the general populace to live together in obedience, peace, and concord. Moreover, we might ask that he would protect us from all kinds of harm to our body and to the things that sustain us—from storms, hail, fire, and flood; from poison, pestilence, and cattle plague; from war and bloodshed, famine, savage beasts, wicked people, etc. It is good to impress upon the common people that all these things come from God and that we must pray for them.

This is Isaiah’s Gospel:

1) God’s Word forgives us before we even trust it

A Gospel that is far richer than our dull hearts are ready to accept;                   but is true even before we start to understand it.

And that’s why:

2) God’s Word comes to us from the outside before we grasp it on the inside (vv. 3-5)

Look at v. 3:

A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

God’s Word dismantles our self-importance, because he doesn’t wait for us to prepare ourselves; and he doesn’t need us to prepare ourselves.

We are so quick to think and talk as though God really needs us: We have to “prepare a path” for the Gospel in apologetics. We have to “clear the way” for people to hear God.

But, look at Isaiah’s language: It is His Word that prepares us for His coming.

God sends John the Baptist preaching a baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins.

This is how people are prepared for God to come to them. Preachers today also do this crying… …as does every Christian who speaks the Gospel.

We aren’t prepared by our thoughts, our reason, or our inner readiness.

In fact, thinking we can prepare ourselves or others… …actually plays into the very problem that Isaiah is solving: our self-importance.

But, this Gospel removes our self importance, v. 4:

⁴ Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain.

The mountains here represent our pride, which is another link back to chapter 2:

¹² For a day belonging to the LORD of Armies is coming against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up—it will be humbled— ¹³ against all the cedars of Lebanon,lofty and lifted up, against all the oaks of Bashan, ¹⁴ against all the high mountains, against all the lofty hills,

Isaiah is using exactly the same language: mountains represent human pride.

And so the valleys contrasted with them probably represent the false humility of self-absorbed despair.

King Ahaz was an example of this back in Isaiah 7, when God invited him:

¹¹ “Ask for a sign from the LORD your God—it can be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.”

But, Ahaz replied with a false humility to hide his lack of faith:

¹² “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.”

The Gospel levels all forms of human self-importance: lowering the self-important, and lifting the self-absorbed.

And so through this Word of the Gospel, God is seen as He really is. Just look at v. 5:

⁵ And the glory of the LORD will appear, and all humanity together will see it, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.

2) God’s Word comes to us from the outside before we grasp it on the inside (vv. 3-5)

In other words: Self-importance wants control. But, the Gospel takes it away—and gives Christ instead.

What is the solution to people’s apathy about the Gospel?

What will humble people’s arrogant attitude that Christ and forgiveness is not relevant to them?

What will lift the self-absorbed in despair, who can only see the world through the lens of their own failure?

In no case is the answer something that points you to your own reasoning, effort, thoughts, ideas, willpower, or anything else.

The answer is the proclamation of the gospel to us from someone outside of us.

We all need to hear the gospel proclaimed to us by other human beings.

That is what is being commanded in v. 3:

A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the LORD in the wilderness;

This is simultaneously a private command to every priest to speak the Gospel. And a public commission to every called servant to publicly proclaim the Gospel.

We cannot survive on our own. We are not capable of self-sustaining faith. It is a self-indulgent, self-important myth to think we can.

We need other people: Specifically we need other people to tell us the Gospel.

So, as our minds are tempted to turn to those questions we started with:

“What impact have I had?”
“Am I useful?”
“Am I a success or a failure?”

Remember this:

3) God’s Word outlasts every story we tell ourselves

Look at how Isaiah himself is address in v. 6:

⁶ A voice was saying, “Cry out!” Another said, “What should I cry out?”

Even the great prophet is not mentioned by name. He fades into the background.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”

As John the Baptist will so rightly say in John 3:30. The messengers are not the message.

See what the Gospel exposes in vv. 6-7:

“All humanity is grass,and all its goodness is like the flower of the field. ⁷ The grass withers, the flowers fade when the breath of the LORD blows on them; indeed, the people are grass.

In myself, I’m not impactful. In myself, I’m not useful. In myself, I’m neither a success, nor a failure.

The things I obsess over to define myself are nothing: A truth that I don’t see until the Gospel blows over me.

Christ is all. Jesus is Lord. We will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.

And so, whatever internal narrative I have in my mind: God’s Word will outlast it, v. 8:

⁸ The grass withers, the flowers fade,but the word of our God remains forever.”

What is your self-story you obsess over? A positive one? A negative one? Not one beat of it will last.

Here is where my self-importance dies, and my faith begins.

Because all Christians have two identities in themselves: The Old Adam, who is drowned in baptism. And the New Adam — and I have risen with Christ.

For the Old Adam, this word of comfort comes as challenge, as offence — as death.

And that’s right: because it kills. That part of me that still desires to be self-important, to matter, to be significant. He is killed by my baptism. He daily dies in that water.

But, the new me, the real me, is nourished by this message. God’s Word is building something lasting, something solid, something that will be here forever. God’s promises are sure, and certain, and entirely secure apart from anything you say or do.

Aren’t I too important to need Christmas?

No. I’m too temporary. Too fragile. Too fading.

And that is exactly why you need Christmas, whether you feel important or not.

Because while I was absorbed in my importance, or crushed by my insignificance,

1) God’s Word forgive you before you even trusted it

I can’t understand the Gospel in myself. I can’t even prepare for the Gospel in myself.

But, 2) God’s Word comes to us from the outside before we grasp it on the inside

That Word did not wait for me. It did not ask my permission. It did not depend on my faith. It stood firm when I didn’t even know I needed to.

And this Word outlasts every story we tell ourselves

I will fade. I won’t last. I won’t leave a legacy of importance. And that is a truly wonderful thing… …understood rightly only as God’s voice blows away my pride.

That Word became flesh. That Word came to you.

That Word died for you. That Word is for you, not against you.

And that word of our God remains forever.