Isaiah 7:10–14 [Advent 4 A]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
December 18, 2022
A Special Sign and A Special Savior You hear the sound coming from the piano…and it is wondrous! You’ve heard people play before—even excellent players—but nothing like this! This one—she is special. She deserves all the attention she gets and every penny she is paid to play like that. An entirely different kind of player separates himself from the others because of what he does on the field. No one else is that fast, has hands like that, has those kinds of moves. It’s not even close! “Special” is how they refer to him. Trophies are his reward—and glory. We are amazed when we see or hear someone or something that is truly special, unique, one-of-a-kind. We like it. We’re impressed by it. If you’re treating those truly special people or things right, you don’t take them for granted or get tired of them. It was about 730 BC, and Judah was a country on the brink of war. The land and God’s people were at risk. Another conflict waged as well. Judah’s king, Ahaz, was at odds with God. In the midst of conflict, a promise came through God’s prophet. What Isaiah talks about are truly special things, things that are one-of-a-kind, things that we ought to be continually impressed by, in awe of, things that we never take for granted or get tired of hearing about. Isaiah spoke of A SPECIAL SIGN and A SPECIAL SAVIOR— and these were not even remotely just for a king and his people back then, they are very much for you and me—and for all people. A Special Sign Therefore the Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel. This is one of the bestknown prophecies in the Bible. Even many people who are not Christians and who don’t know their Bible may be acquainted with this one! That’s because Isaiah’s message is one of the prophetical appetizers for the dinner that is Christmas. It whets the appetite. It gets you ready for the actual story of that simple couple, the pregnant Mary, the caring Joseph, following the dusty road from the north down to Bethlehem— maybe a week-long journey—only to get there and find that there was nowhere to stay except a stable. The baby would be born there—the one at the center of traditional Christmases. But it’s still Advent for another week! We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Back to the prophecy that pointed in the direction of that Bethlehem birth. It feels kind of strange that God gave this promise, this SPECIAL SIGN, to a spiritual train-wreck of a king who didn’t want to hear it. It was also given at the time the Lord was discussing with this king the international conflict that threatened Judah, the land he ruled over— the area where Jerusalem and Bethlehem were.