Name Above All Names Sermon preached by Carolyn M. Raffensperger Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014 Big Bay O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel! O come Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan's tyrany. From depths of hell, Thy people save And give them victory o'er the grave. O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by Thine advent here; And drive away the shades of night, And pierce the clouds and bring us light! O come, Thou Key of David, come And open wide our heavenly home; Make safe the way that leads on high And close the path to misery. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel! Symbols. Christmas is full of symbols.--candles and fir trees, gifts, even snow. I once bought a few Christmas ornaments and found them all symbols of Jesus--the lamb, a star, a lion, bread, a door and so forth. The song we sang first this morning is hard to sing. We only sing it for the first Sunday of Advent and the message is hard to figure out. What on earth is the key of David? Or Dayspring? It sent me hunting for answers and I thought this morning we would look at the some of the symbols in the text and learn something new but more, get new blessing from understanding who Jesus is. The title of the hymn is, O Come, O Come, Immanuel. The title is found in Isaiah 7. where it talks about a fearful, threatened king Ahaz, comforted with God's message of 'fear not.' Isa 7:1-14 When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram (a place north east of Damascus) and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel (the northern part of the country in civil war against the south, called Judah--whenRezin and Pekah marched up to fight against Jerusalem, they could not overpower it. 2 Now the house or descendents of David were told, "Aram has allied itself with Ephraim"( a tribe of Israel very close to Jerusalem and Judea) ; so the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind. 3 Then the LORD said to Isaiah, "Go out, you and your son Shear-Jashub,-- let us stop here a moment-- [shee ur JAY shuhb]means a remnant shall return - a symbolic name given to a son of the prophet Isaiah in the days of King Ahaz of Judah (Isa 7:3). The name emphasized Isaiah's prophecy that a remnant of the nation would return to the land after their years of captivity in a foreign country. 1 shear-jashub is the name of Isaiah's son. Back to Isaiah--the Lord told him to get his son and go to meet Ahaz at the end of the aqueduct of the Upper Pool, on the road to the Washerman's Field. (this is in Jerusalem). 4 Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood--(in other words, enemies with little power) --Just because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. 5 Aram, Ephraim and Remaliah's son 1 (from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright (c)1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)t
have plotted your ruin, saying, 6 "Let us invade Judah; let us tear it apart and divide it among ourselves, and make the son of Tabeel king over it." 7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: "'It will not take place,it will not happen. If you do not stand firm in your faith,you will not stand at all.'" He says that these rulers are nothing. Verse10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, 11 "Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights." Ask for a sign so you know that what God says is true. 12 But Ahaz said, "I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test." 13 Then Isaiah said, "Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? In other words--you don't believe God! And it makes God angry! But God will give you a sign anyway! 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. The country is in civil war; Ahaz is terrified. The Lord tells Ahaz that he should not be afraid, that what the enemy threatens will not happen. He must stand firm or he would fail as king. The Lord tells him to ask for a sign that will prove God's faithfulness. Ahaz isn't about to do that. The Lord says, I'll give you a sign any way--a virgin will conceive and bare a son and his name will be called Immanuel. "El" on any Hebrew word is the name 'God' (Daniel, Samuel. Joel for example) and this word means 'God with us.' (Different from 'Jah"--Jeremiah--the great name for The Lord.) Isaiah says that help from other countries or armies will not help you. God himself will come to be with you. It is clear in many Scriptures that we cannot depend on armies, or other countries. We can only depend on the Lord who is sovereign over all. The pleas of this hymn is for Jesus Christ, Immanuel, to come and be with us. The hymn pleads that God will free Israel. He has done it. They are no longer in exile for since the second world war they have their own land and have returned. God has answered part of the prayer. He will come again and so we continue to pray for Immanuel to come again to be present with us. Rod of Jesse O Come Thou Rod of Jesse, free us from Satan's tyranny and give us victory over the grave. What is the 'Rod of Jesse?' We go again to Isaiah (Isa 11:1-5) A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-- the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD-- 3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness will be his belt Jesse is the father of David and from his family would come a 'shoot' or off spring or a descendant.. The Messiah was always understood to come from the family of David and the two genealogies in Matthew (ch. 1) and Luke( ch. 3:23ff) show the lineage of Joseph and what we
believe to be that of Mary--the legal line and the genetic line. The hymn prays that this One would free his people from Satan's rule of tyranny and the ultimate evil--death. Isaiah writes that Immanuel will be a just judge--freeing the 'captives' and slaying the wicked with the 'rod' of his mouth. The rod is his Word which is as strong as a sword or cudgel against evil. `Jeremiah writes: "Is not my word like fire," declares the LORD, "and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?" Jer 23:29 Put those words into the picture we know from John 1: (John 1:1-5) 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Word is strong and came to destroy death and evil bringing life by the Word of His mouth to any one who believes in his name. Yet to come in the future is the final victory when The Lord God casts Satan into hell forever. (Rev. 20:7-10) Dayspring. O Come Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here...and bring us light. Did you ever lie awake nights and wonder if day would ever come? Maybe you were driving across the Mojave desert to avoid the heat of the day. The road stretched out forever and you drove and drove and didn't think the sun would ever come up or that you would ever make it to California. When I was a student nurse I worked many night shifts. We would come on at 11 p.m., take report, make rounds and then go through the endless night...everything was quiet. There often was not a whole lot of work. You hoped patients were asleep. 3:30 would come and I would have nausea; coffee made everything worse and 7 a.m. never seemed to come. It seemed like a steep mountain that had to be climbed and just couldn't be accomplished. Dayspring--a wonderful poetic word for dawn. Isaiah writes about the dawn: (Isa 9:2) 2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. The word dayspring is found in Luke 1 in a great song by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. Listen to the words of this poem: 67 And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, 68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, 69 And hath raised up an hornof salvation for us in the house of his servant David; (Horn is a word for a strong weapon of offense) 70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: 71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; 72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; 73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, 74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, 75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. 76 And thou, child, (John) shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; 77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, 78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, 79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into
the way of peace. Hear again that word from John 1:1-5 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness... Jesus said, I am the light of the world. (Matt9:5) The light has dawned. Dayspring has come to cheer our spirits by his advent--his coming. Light is surely understood as knowledge--the light bulb over the head--but presence as well. He is our wisdom and he is our ever present help because his Spirit lives within us. He is what we hope for, what we long for and can never be satisfied until we are satisfied in him. Key of David O Come Thou Key of David, come and open wides our heavenly home; Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery. Keys open doors wide. It is the tool that releases a lock (Judg 3:25). The key is also spoken of symbolically in the Bible as a sign of authority. The prophet Isaiah described a time when Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, would be elevated as the king's steward (2 Kings 18:18). The prophet declared that He would be given "the key of the House of David" (Isa 22:22), or the authority to act in the king's name. This is probably the background for a proper understanding of the statement of Jesus that the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" were being given to Peter (Matt 16:19). As the Messiah from the line of David, Jesus who had all authority, was calling on Peter to take on leadership responsibility and authority for the young church. Jesus condemned the scribes of His day because they had "taken away the key of knowledge" (Luke 11:52). According to their interpretation, only they had the right to explain the meaning of God's Law, or the Scriptures. They failed to share this knowledge with the common people. 2 So the key of the House of David, is the authority that belongs to the king The hymn pleads for God to open wide the door to heaven, closing off the path of misery. Daniel tells of a vision he had of the coming Christ: (Dan 7:13-14) 3 "In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." The Pharisees continually challenged Jesus' authority. When he forgave the sins of the paralized man (Mark 2) they wanted to know on what authority he had to do so since they considered it blaspheme.. He replied to them: 10 ("So) that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." He said to the paralytic, 11 "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." --showing his authority over sickness as well as authority to forgive sin.." All this is wrapped up in the idea of the Key of David--having the authority of an earthly king and as The King of Heaven. Immanuel,God with us, descended from David as prophesied but mightier than David, having omnipotent power and authority, gives the light of life to all who believe. As we approach Christmas we can know intimately, close up, the presence of the Lord Jesus who came to live within, to be our helper, to be our friend, to be God with us. I've found a friend, Oh such a friend, He loved me, e'er I knew Him. He drew me with the cords of love And thus He bound me to Him. 2 ibid
And round my heart still closely twined, The cords which none can sever, For I am His and He is mine For ever and for ever. I've found a Friend, oh, such a Friend So kind, and true and tender, So wise a counselor and Guide, So mighty a defender. From Him who loves me now so well, What power my soul can sever? Shall life or death, or earth or hell? No, I am His forever. James Gridley Small