Isaiah 40:7-8, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
Here Isaiah speaks not only of the Word of God in the abstract that is of the Words of God but also in the personal that is – Jesus Christ who is the Word of God (John 1:1-3). He is the immortality injected into our mortal world. He is the eternal breaking apart this momentary. He is the life which enters into and outlasts death. On the cross, suffering for the sins of the world, Jesus may have seemed to be merely a flower of the field. Cut down. Dead too young – only about 30 years old. But “The Word of our God stands forever.” The shoot that sprung from Jesse’s cut off stump would also spring from death’s cold clutches. Death never had a chance. This was foreshadowed even from his birth, indeed from long before it. For the Word has always been and will always be!
In Christ
Pastor Ude

The second thing I think the real St. Nick would say to his fat fib Santa is this: “Stop lying to children!”

I mean this in two ways. I have often heard people talking as if it’s so important to tell children Santa Claus is real so that they can “experience Christmas” or so their “innocence” isn’t “spoiled.” While I have nothing wrong with reading kids fairy tales or watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or getting their picture taken with Santa at the mall, let’s be clear about one thing: If you tell your kids that Santa Claus is real you are lying. You know he isn’t real. One day they will know he isn’t real. And that raises the possibility that they will begin to question whether other things you told them when they were children were lies too. If you plant Jesus and Santa Claus side by side in your child’s heart and mind, you may not be able to predict what will happen when you uproot Santa. The weed might take the flower along with it.

And there’s a bigger lie. The basic premise of Santa Claus is really a religious one, and it’s not the good kind. In the popular song “Santa Claus is coming to town” children are being taught to view Santa as a god who knows all (he knows when you are sleeping etc), is capable of omnipresent-esque activity and has all kinds of supernatural powers. They are taught to write him letters asking for things (that’s call prayer, folks) and that if they want to receive good presents from him, they better not be naughty…that is work righteousness.

The writer to the Hebrews said, “It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace.” We humans, children included, have a major tendency to live our lives on a work righteous basis. This is an incipient and deadly condition of our sinful nature. It needs to be rooted out. Santa encourages it. Christian children should be taught only one motivation for doing what is good: to give thanks to Jesus who freely took away their sins! Children need to be fed, to be brought up, to be strengthened by the grace of Jesus Christ who became a child for them, not by work righteousness.

If you explain to your children that Santa is a made up story, just for fun that’s fine. But watch out if you present it as fact! You might not realize it but you are lying to them, you may even be teaching them to worship a false god something the real St. Nick heartily opposed. According to tradition, he tore down idol shrines (pictured on the right) and even the beautiful temple of the false god artemis. Listen to the real St. Nick. Let the only God your children worship be Jesus. Let His grace be the only motivation you give them for doing good. Let him be the one they “write” to.

In Christ
Pastor Ude

Today, December 6th, is the day when the Church has historically remembered St. Nick. That’s right, the man behind the legend known as Santa Claus. Yes he was real. No he’s not from the North Pole. He lived in a much warmer realm. The city of Myra in the Roman province of Lycia on the Mediterranean sea (modern day Turkey). He was a bishop (a Pastor). This real man was vastly, wildly different from the “Santa Claus” which he has been morphed into in popular culture. What do you suppose the real St. Nick would say to today’s imaginary Santa? (Other than, The Mediterranean is way better than the North Pole!) Over the next couple days we’ll look at a couple.

Isaiah 40:3-5 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

When someone important comes to town, you pull out all the stops. When someone you care about comes to your house, you clean it up, make your best meal, put your best foot forward. When God Himself comes to earth, and reveals His glory in the face of a human babe, let every heart prepare him room! Clean up the sewage of sin and clean out the guilt garbage. Let pride be turned into sorrow and despair into joy! Let complacency give way to fervor and despondency to exultation. He is coming. He has come. He comes again. And He brings glory. The glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. The glory of the sun. The gory glory of the cross and of a cross-free eternity beyond. The voice is still crying. The mouth of the Lord has still spoken. Prepare His ways!

Isaiah 40:1-2, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”

Often human wars drag on and on because both sides are so outraged at all the things done by the other that they refuse to give up. They feel like they need to make them “pay.” The war which Isaiah speaks of in our text was the war which we had with God. It was a war which was entirely one sided in three ways. First, we were the only wrongdoers. Usually in war there is plenty of blame to go around. Not so in our case. God made us perfect, we sinned! God was patient with us, we despised Him! Second, we have no chance of winning. When God comes in judgment then all evildoers will be burnt in judgment. Third, God offers a very different, but still entirely one-sided ending to this war. In grace he poured out his righteous wrath against sin down on Jesus Christ instead of on you and me. This is what Isaiah means when he says “her inquity is pardoned.” Literally he says “Her guilt sacrifice has been accepted.” The sacrifice which was paid for our sin was Jesus Christ the lamb of God. As a result we have received from the Lord double for all our sins. That is to say, the forgiveness He worked so entirely one-sidedly was far more than enough to pay for all the sins of the world. This means there is sure comfort you. You don’t have to wonder whether this or that sin is covered. You don’t have to wonder whether God is still angry with you. “Comfort, my people” says your God!

Isaiah 40:1-2

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.”

“Talk nicely to me!” Is a phrase that I hear routinely from my oldest daughter these days. She learned it from me of course but she doesn’t exactly use it in the same way. I say it to her when she is being sassy or rude or when she is screaming. She says it to me whenever I, regardless of my tone of voice, tell her not to do something or that she isn’t allowed to do something or that something she did was naughty. She thinks, as many these days do, that it’s not nice to tell someone they are wrong or that they can’t have something.