One of the oldest Christmas carols that dates back to the 16th century is often written and sung with a misplaced comma. Perhaps you have seen it or sung it like this—"God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” where the word merry is used as an adjective as it is in the greeting “Merry Christmas.” Actually the wish of the carol is not that God would give merry gentlemen rest but that God would make gentlemen merry. In its Old English usage the word rest carried the idea of "to keep, to cause to continue, to remain, to make” so it is a wish for God to grant peace and happiness. So the title of the carol should be—"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” How does God do that? The answer lies in the repeated phrase in the chorus of the carol, with “Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. O tidings of comfort and joy.”
Enough of an English lesson about adjectives, verbs and misplaced commas. The more serious issue is misplaced hope (people are looking for help and happiness in all the wrong places, sometimes even God’s people). So this is not merely an issue for people in general but God’s people in particular, Christians as well as non-Christians. In spite of what God’s people may be feeling in post-pandemic 2021, misplaced hope is not just a 21st century problem; it was a 1st century problem and even before that it was a problem in 7th century B.C. during the days of Isaiah the prophet. The text that we want to look at today is Isaiah 40. Before we look at the text, let’s remind ourselves of the context.
The Context:
David McKenna describes the context this way: “Isaiah’s vision shifts forward a hundred years into the land of Babylon where the children of Judah have languished so long in exile that they have given up hope of returning to their homeland. Despair has overtaken them with the thought that God has canceled His covenant with them and abandoned them because of their sins.”
Do you remember the legend of Rip Van Winkle, the character in Washington Irving’s short story who took a walk into the Catskills Mountains with his dog Wolf, fell asleep, and woke up 20 years later to a world that was radically different? Ray Ortlund describes Isaiah’s experience as Rip Van Winkle-like: “It’s as if Isaiah had fallen asleep at the end of chapter 39. While he slept, Judah was taken into exile. And it’s as if, in a prophetic dream, Isaiah was lifted into God’s heavenly court to hear Judah’s predicament being discussed But now in chapter 40 . . . Isaiah wakes up in (to him) a new historical situation. He reveals to the Jews what he heard in the heavenly throne room. God has summoned his prophets to take a message of hope to his demoralized people.”
Perhaps you remember the dialogue in the opening scene of the Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. The scene begins on earth as we hear prayers being offered for George Bailey. Then the scene shifts to the heavens where we hear a conversation among the angels in heaven—“Looks like we'll have to send someone down. A lot of people asking for help for a man named George Bailey.” So the call finally comes to the angel Clarence—"A man down on earth needs our help. Splendid! Is he sick? No. Worse. He's discouraged. At exactly ten forty-five P.M., earth-time, that man will be thinking seriously of throwing away God's greatest gift…his life.” That is what is behind Isaiah 40—God’s people are discouraged. That may describe some of us as well.
The Conversation:
Here is the conversation taking place in the throne room of heaven among unknown voices that Isaiah overheard, recorded in Isaiah 40:1-11: 1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.
3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
6 A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”
9 You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” 10 See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Isaiah’s vision fast forwards not twenty years but a hundred years. Still in captivity God’s people are feeling defeated and disillusioned. They are thinking that God has failed them, abandoned them, and in their aloneness and bitterness they are doing what we often do, blaming God for what they are enduring. So what will God do? He will come down to comfort His discouraged people. He comes with a promise and with a hope that is grounded in Who He is and what He will do. He promises to display His glory before the whole waiting, watching world and to declare “Here is your God!”, an always with us, ever-present God.
The repeated use of the word comfort and the command “Speak tenderly” underscores the depth of feeling in the heart of God, compassion from the very core of His being. In the midst of their distress and despair, they will be comforted, and at an appointed time in their future history they will be restored.
In this text God speaks through His prophet Isaiah to reveal Who He is and what He will do to restore His people. In Babylonian exile they had experienced His holiness, which exposed their sin, and they encountered His justice, which demanded their punishment. Now, He will display to them His creative power and His redemptive love. Their source of hope and our source of hope rests in this theology of God as Creator and Redeemer. The people of God will be assured of the power of God that He can deliver them to Jerusalem and they will experience the grace of God Who will restore their covenant relationship with Him. That will be a source of great joy—tidings of joy! Do you remember what the angels announced at the birth of Jesus in Luke 2:10-11: 10 . . . “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
We will come back to that story of redemptive love but who is this powerful Creator God Who is able to deliver His people out of exile or any circumstance that threatens to defeat us? The conversation with God continues in Isaiah 40:12–27 from The Message:
12 Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger, Who has put all the earth’s dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill? 13 Who could ever have told GOD what to do or taught him his business? 14 What expert would he have gone to for advice, what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work? 15 Why, the nations are but a drop in a bucket, a mere smudge on a window. Watch him sweep up the islands like so much dust off the floor! 16 There aren’t enough trees in Lebanon nor enough animals in those vast forests to furnish adequate fuel and offerings for his worship. 17 All the nations add up to simply nothing before him— less than nothing is more like it. A minus. 18 So who even comes close to being like God? To whom or what can you compare him? 19 Some no-god idol? Ridiculous! It’s made in a workshop, cast in bronze, Given a thin veneer of gold, and draped with silver filigree. 20 Or, perhaps someone will select a fine wood— olive wood, say—that won’t rot, Then hire a woodcarver to make a no-god, giving special care to its base so it won’t tip over! 21 Have you not been paying attention? Have you not been listening? Haven’t you heard these stories all your life? Don’t you understand the foundation of all things? 22 God sits high above the round ball of earth. The people look like mere ants. He stretches out the skies like a canvas— yes, like a tent canvas to live under. 23 He ignores what all the princes say and do. The rulers of the earth count for nothing. 24 Princes and rulers don’t amount to much. Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted, They shrivel when God blows on them. Like flecks of chaff, they’re gone with the wind. 25 “So—who is like me? Who holds a candle to me?” says The Holy. 26 Look at the night skies: Who do you think made all this? Who marches this army of stars out each night, counts them off, calls each by name —so magnificent! so powerful!— and never overlooks a single one? 27 Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, “GOD has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me”?
Finally, in Isaiah 40:28 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
As amazing as that is, it is not enough to know this everlasting, ever-present God as the Creator God. He is also our Redeemer God. The message of comfort comes in God’s redemptive love. We are beginning to see glimpses of how this redemptive act will be accomplished in the coming Messiah. It will be through Him that the children of Israel and all of humanity will be redeemed as He comes to be our Immanuel (“God with us”) and our Suffering Servant (sacrificed for us). That will be a source of comfort—tidings of comfort and joy! Do you remember these words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4-- 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
The Convergence:
Like other prophetic messages in Isaiah there is an immediate and an ultimate application with prophecies fulfilled in 7th century B.C. and first century A.D, even into eternity. All four gospel writers see the convergence of these words from Isaiah 40:3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God with the arrival of John the Baptist. Luke also declares the convergence of these words 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken” with John’s announcement of the arrival of Jesus Christ on the stage of human history.
For centuries before the coming of Christ, the world was still walking in spiritual darkness and waiting in deafening silence. The silence was shattered and the darkness was scattered with angelic appearances and their announcement of the coming of Jesus Christ--at last a light shining in the darkness and a word from God breaking the silence—the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Later in 1 Peter 1:24-25 when the church is scattered and suffering persecution Peter declares the convergence of these words from Isaiah 40:6-8: “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” The message is clear that human rulers are temporal but the word of God filled with promises is eternal. God will keep His promises!
At the end of the first century, exiled on the Isle of Patmos, alone and seemingly abandoned, John sees a vision of a reigning, returning Conquering King in Revelation 22:12, the convergence of Isaiah 40:10—See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.
Finally, there is a convergence of Isaiah 40:11—He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young with Jesus’ claim to be the Good Shepherd in John 10:11.
Here is the good news of comfort and joy--The one unique difference between Jesus our Shepherd and all other shepherds who ever cared for the flock of God—He laid aside the role of the shepherd to become a sheep. We call that the incarnation when He became like us. It is more than that. It is what John the Baptist said of Jesus when He came to him for baptism as reported in John 1:29, “Look, the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!” We call that redemption when he died for us, to buy us back to God. It is even more than that. It is what John saw in his vision of the redeemed people of God from every nation, tribe, people, and language, overcomers in heaven recorded in Revelation 7:15-17: 15 Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. 16 Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” We call that glory! The Lamb that was slain, now standing in the center of the throne, our Shepherd will be leading us. That is the promise of an ever-present God of comfort and joy with us now and forever!