God With Us

Nativity of the Lord – Proper III
25 December 2025

Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12)
John 1:1-14

Ancient Movie Clips Isaiah 52:7-10 and Hebrews 1:1-12 (Ron Vonk)

The Bible is the ancient equivalent of a modern Hollywood movie; only movies come with visual effects. The Bible requires us to use our ears instead of our eyes. In a movie we watch the bad guys do bad things. And after a robbery or a murder we watch the good guys catch the bad guys. The problem in a movie is that we do not always know who the good guys are. Sometimes the good guys turn out to be the bad guys. Sometimes people who have just watched a movie together argue over who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

In the Bible, as in a movie, it is not always clear who the good guys and who the bad guys are . The characters in the Bible are all flawed human beings; sometimes good but also sometimes bad.

This morning our scripture readings place us in the center of four ancient movies. We come into the movies well after they started and we leave the theatre before the movies finish. I invite you to join the characters in two sets of these ancient movie clips – one presented by the prophet Isaiah and the other presented by the writer of the book of Hebrews. It will take more imagination than we need to watch a modern movie but if you stay with me I assure you that these movie clips are parts of exciting storytelling that later you can read more about. Yet unlike most movies today, these movies are not fictional creations. They present real people sharing parts of their life experiences.

We begin with Isaiah 52. A powerful enemy army is approaching the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem’s own army has left the protection of the city to engage the enemy in battle.

The scene opens with sentinels on top of Jerusalem’s walls. The sentinels are watching carefully. They hope for a friendly messenger to come, a messenger who will bring good news from the battle front. They are not used to hearing good news. The clip shows that the sentinels are standing on the walls of a battered city. Past enemy armies have ruined much of the city.

The sentinels see a messenger approaching. There is a spring in the messenger’s steps. It looks like he is bringing good news. Yes, the messenger announces peace. The war is over. The enemy is defeated.

The messenger shouts as he runs toward the city. The messenger shouts, “Your God reigns!” God delivered his people from harm. No wonder Isaiah the prophet declares, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces “peace”, who brings good news.

As we watch this ancient equivalent of a movie, the excitement moves from one messenger to all the sentinels on the walls of Jerusalem. Then the excitement moves to all the people of Jerusalem.

Now let us watch this movie clip again – this time in slow motion so we can catch all the details. At first the sentinels on the city walls can barely hear what the messenger is shouting. He is too far away. But soon his words become clear, “Your God reigns!” The sentinels join the messenger’s single voice and the sound of shouting and singing gets louder and louder.

But wait! There is more! Hard on the heels of the messenger and now in plain sight comes God Godself! God is coming back to Jerusalem. All Jerusalem sings and shouts. Jerusalem, a city of ruins and rubble, is safe. God returns. Safe at last. There is a lot of good news in this movie clip.

Now let me ask. Who are the bad guys in this movie clip? Notice Isaiah does not tell us who the approaching enemy is. Many commentators suggest that the enemy army is the army of the Babylonians. The Babylonians were the obvious bad guys in Isaiah’s day.

There is a less obvious enemy Isaiah also talks about in his writings. The less obvious enemy are the people of Jerusalem. In the opening chapter of Isaiah, Isaiah describes the people of Jerusalem as a sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption, children who turned their backs on God.

And so it was no surprise that God left Jerusalem. The people in Jerusalem were their own bad guys. The surprise of Isaiah 52 is that God returns to Jerusalem. The entire city breaks into song as God returns. Those who previously turned their backs on God, those who suffered at the hands of the more obvious bad guys in this movie, are comforted. The approaching enemy army is defeated. God has returned. Yes, there is a lot of good news in this first movie clip.

Now for some more good news from our second series. Our second series has more in common with a Harry Potter movie than our movie clip from the ancient walls of Jerusalem. In what follows we feel like Harry Potter when he first magically smashes his way through a brick walls on a railroad station platform in order to board his train to Hogwarts School. In our scene from Hebrews we also see the spectacular, we see someone who is the reflection of God’s glory, the exact imprint of God’s being, and we see someone superior to angels. This is not baby Jesus in a manger. It is a very different presentation of Christmas.

As in any good movie we are first introduced to the characters. A narrator introduces the set of characters.

First are the prophets – prophets in the Old Testament like King David. The first scene here takes us back to David’s coronation as king. In ancient cultures the king was the most powerful person in a nation – a combination of prime minister, army general, Supreme Court justice, and pope. The king had a special relationship with God; the king was considered God’s right hand man. (And it was always a man).

At his coronation, David hears this decree from God: “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” Even in David’s time, Jews knew that David was only a poor reflection of this son.

The second scene in this series is from a much later period in David’s kingship. David is now a successful king. He has built himself a beautiful castle, the ancient equivalent of a Prime Minister’s residence and a Buckingham Palace. As David sits on his throne, David realizes that while he sits in his grand palace, Israel’s place of worship is a tent. This is the portable place of worship the people built during their wilderness wanderings. The tent is insignificant beside David’s castle.

So David decides to build a grand permanent place of worship. Let’s imagine David at the construction site. He is surrounded by lumber, dressed stone, ancient lamps, hammers, chisels, shovels and scaffolding. At this construction site David hears another decree from God – this time a decree delivered to David by the prophet Nathan. God decrees to David …”I will raise up your offspring after you ….He, this offspring, this son shall build a house for my name…I will be his Father, and he will be my son.” The builder of this grand permanent place of worship was not David, but David’s son Solomon. And again Jews knew that Solomon was a poor reflection of this promised son.

And now in the Book of Hebrews we finally meet the actual promised son of David – this Son of God who sits not only on David’s throne but on God’s throne (perhaps we remember that kingship for Israel had not been God’s idea), this Son who has a unique relationship with God the Father, this son who is David’s successor. The legitimate heir to a promised Kingdom; a kingdom on high.

The third scene in this series moves to a whole new dimension. We began with God speaking by the prophets – prophets like King David and the prophet Nathan. Now in the third clip we watch angels. The angels are the heavenly counterpart to the prophets.

Again this scene begins on earth, begins here. We go back to the Old Testament. We watch a solitary figure, an ancient shepherd with his sheep in the wilderness. Forty years ago this shepherd was a prince in Egypt, not an Egyptian by birth but adopted into the royal family. When he was a prince, this shepherd killed an Egyptian for beating a member of the shepherd’s people. The shepherd was sentenced to death for his crime. He fled for his life and now for the past forty years this former prince has been a shepherd.

One day in the wilderness this shepherd sees a strange sight – a flame of fire in a bush yet that does not consume the bush. An angel of God speaks to this shepherd, a man named Moses, out of the flame. The angel tells Moses that he must bring his people out of slavery in Egypt.

This divine voice, this divine messenger, this flame of fire, is now in our final clip. The narrator of Hebrews compares the Son of David who we have already met, to angels. The Son of David or Son of God is as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. This Son is uniquely qualified to be one through whom God speaks his final word.

Then God says this about the Son’s relationship to angels. “Let all God’s angels worship Him.” Angels like the angel Moses encountered in the wilderness, angels who sometimes appear as flames of fire, are like us, God’s creations, they worship the pre-existing Son. The Son is superior. The Son is eternal. The Son is unchangeable. This pre-existent Son created all that we see and experience in all of creation.

Now as we leave this final movie clip we still need to deal with one final question. What makes this Son, this promised Son of David, the one who is superior to angels? What makes this Son special?

The answer to this final question is also a surprise. The answer does not lie in the spectacular. The answer is found in the middle of verse 3 in Hebrews chapter 1. It has to do with the tension between good guys and bad guys. In the same way that ancient kings were not up to the task of being good representatives of the heavenly king, we are not the good guys even in our own stories.

The key words in Hebrews chapter 1 are these words about the Son, “When he had made purification for sins” he sat down (at his rightful place) at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The surprise in our second set of movie clips is the same surprise as in our very first movie clip. First, not surprisingly, in the same way that it was no surprise that God left the ancient city of Jerusalem, it is no surprise that we live in a culture where God often seems absent. We are deeply flawed human beings. Sometimes we love wickedness and hate righteousness.

Now the surprise. The surprise of Hebrews chapter 1 is the surprise of Isaiah 52. As God returned to ancient Jerusalem, God has returned to our modern world. That is the surprise we celebrate at Christmas.

But God also must take care of our need for cleansing. Our wrongdoing defiles us. The defilement needs to be purged.
When the Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem they destroyed the temple and burned what was found in it. This included the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant was understood the be God’s presence and the people could not find atonement without God’s presence. Our reading from Matthew from last Sunday makes a reference to this that also connects to this reading from Hebrews. The angel tells Joseph, “… you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” and a little later the angel explains that “they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’
That is the surprise of Good Friday and Easter that begins at the incarnation.

Those who previously turned their backs on God, those who suffered at the hands of the bad guys (bad guys who are sometimes us), are comforted.

The enemy is gone. God has returned.
Joy to the World!