Series: Christ The Savior is Born

Pastor Nate Walther

New Years Eve, 2025

Another year is in the books.  In just a few short hours, 2025 will be in the rear-view mirror.  How are you feeling about the past year?  This one is hitting me more than most.  After a decade of raising our kids and starting a church in North Dakota, I couldn’t have imagined how different life would be just one short year later in Madison.  And so many things seemed like a big deal back then.  So many problems to figure out a year ago!  But now they hardly matter.  In their place are plenty of other problems! 

Not here at church, mind you.  I love being here and just “being a pastor” after a decade of being all things that a small mission church requires.  But suddenly, I own a house after living in a parsonage for a decade – plenty of additional stressors come with that!  Then, both Heather and I are working full time for the first time since we had kids – plenty of juggling of the schedules there!  With that it dawns on me how quickly we forget what we’ve made it through, and how quickly we get fixated on new problems. Over the last few years, Heather and I even came up with a saying whenever we solved something: “onto the next crisis!”, because there’s always another crisis.

I know you can relate, and it’s also something Isaiah’s audience from our sermon text could relate to.  Like us, they faced plenty of crises.  Listen to how Isaiah describes it the first half of his prophecy.  First there’s God responding to his people’s sin in Isaiah 1:“Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great. Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire; your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you…”  Then, there’s God explaining the consequences when they continued their sin, Isaiah 24:“The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred.  In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all joyful sounds are banished from the earth. The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces…” Finally, there’s God’s Word to the king in Isaiah 39:“The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord…”  It’s just one hit after another, and if these times and these problems were all they had, they would be doomed.  But that’s also why God sent Isaiah to them, to give them the GIFT OF PERSPECTIVE. The second half of his prophecy – especially, what we hear in our sermon text – does just that. 

In the first part of our sermon text, God’s people are speaking. And what’s immediately clear?  Things have completely turned around.  Verse 10 describes an emphatic joy – it’s even pictured with the language of a wedding, one of the most joyful times of life – and it’s all because the people have found salvation & righteousness… Then, in the second part of our sermon text, starting with chapter 62, God himself starts speaking, and what stands out there?  Again, things have completely turned around.  Verse 2 describes how all those nations and kings – who previously attacked and conquered and exiled them –would now see Israel differently!  Why was that?  From start to finish in this text, it’s simply because of the Lord.  Verse 10, God is the one who clothes his people in salvation & righteousness; Verse 11, God is the one who causes his people’s praise to sprout up; Chapter 62, verse 1, God is the one who will not rest or be silent, Verse 2, God is the one who assigns to his people a new name; finally, verse 3, God is the one who holds his loved ones in his palm.

Dear friends in Christ, a new year with its new problems is an opportunity to remember God will always work things out.  We need that reminder, because the passage of time wears on us just as surely.  We face trouble like God’s people in the past, and we worry about it.  For all our faith & desire to follow God, we also have days where we think everything is falling apart & we don’t trust God to put it back together.  It’s why we don’t deserve salvation, nor are we worthy to bear God’s holy name.  Far from being symbols of God’s strength, we are symbols of weakness….

Yet, we just heard the opposite.  God tells us through Isaiah that we are God’s crown and we are God’s scepter – both symbols of a king’s strength.  How can that be?  It starts with Christmas: God showing his strength in weakness – in an infant child born in human flesh, a child who suffered under all human frailty & sin, a child who was born to die on the cross in payment for all sin… all so we could be adopted into God’s name by being baptized into Jesus name, all to show a strength from God that could overcome all human weakness, all bring us into the light.

Now that this light has dawned, it changes our perspective on things, much like the first light of morning.  Have you ever noticed that?  Maybe you are in your tree stand, and it is dark, and you can’t make out much in the shapes around you.  But then the sun rises, and everything is clear, and maybe that’s when you suddenly notice that buck standing in the clearing!…  So also, it’s the GIFT OF PERSPECTIVE God shows us in the light of the Christ child.  That’s what can make a real difference in your life this new year if you look at things in that light.  And not just for you.

As we heard in our sermon text, this wasn’t just for the Israelites to see – or, by extension, us Christians today as spiritual children of Abraham – this is for all nations to see!   Think about it: life is hard enough with Christ.  Can you imagine how much your friends and family and coworkers are struggling without Christ?  They may put on a good face, but what war do they face?  What siege surrounds them?  What has been exiled and carried from their lives – and they don’t have an answer for it?

We can’t settle for that!  We love these people in our lives!  So what can we do to shine this light on them?… Maybe that’s the New Years’ resolution you’ve been searching for.  Have you been trying to figure ot out?  So often, we think of New Years’ resolutions in terms of self, and so often we fail because of the shortcomings of our sinful selves.  But what if we thought if it in terms of others, in terms of service?   What can we do in the new year to shine this light on others in word or deed, through invitations to church or acts of love that meet others’ needs?

It’s something to think about.  It’s a different perspective.  Finally, it’s the Christmas gift God gives us in Jesus.  Everything looks different in that light. And also, that includes our new year.  Whatever you face, know that God will get you through it too.  See it in the light of the Christ child.  Amen.