Sermon Text: Isaiah 7:4-16
Date: December 21, 2025
Event: The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A

Isaiah 7:4-16 (EHV)

Tell Ahaz, “Get control of yourself, and remain calm. Do not be afraid. Do not lose your courage because of these two stubs of smoldering torches. Do not be afraid because of the fierce anger of Rezin, Aram, and the son of Remaliah, 5even though Aram, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted evil against you and said, 6‘Let’s go up against Judah and tear it apart. Let’s divide it among ourselves and set up a king over it, namely, this son of Tabe’el.’ ”

7This is what the LORD God says.

Their plan shall not succeed.
It shall not take place.
8Yes, the head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin,
but within sixty-five years Ephraim will be broken into pieces,
so that it will no longer be a people.
9The head of Ephraim is only Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
If you do not stand firm in faith,
you will not stand at all.

10The Lord spoke to Ahaz again. He said, 11“Ask for a sign from the LORD your God. Ask for it either in the depths below or in the heights above.”

12But Ahaz responded, “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.”

13So Isaiah said:

Listen now, you house of David. Is it not enough for you to test the patience of men? Will you test the patience of my God as well? 14Therefore 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. 15He will eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse evil and choose good, 16because even before the child knows how to refuse evil and choose good, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken.

God’s Salvation Is Shocking

When was the last time you were surprised? Truly, knock-you-off-your-feet surprised? In today’s internet age of global, instant communication, perhaps we’re a bit jaded. We have heard so much from so many different places that something has to be incredibly touching or disturbing to get through because otherwise, nothing is all that surprising anymore. We experience so many different things second-hand that are outside of our personal bubble through social media and other sources, even if the truthfulness might often be suspect.

No, to be genuinely shocked, you probably have to look smaller, not bigger. Politicians and other world leaders doing wonderful or deplorable things may not surprise us much, but when someone dear to us does something special and unexpected, that probably resonates more than 1,000 shocking headlines ever could. Maybe it was a past Christmas gift or another thoughtful gesture. Maybe it was an idea from someone that unlocked the way forward on the task you had been stuck on for what felt like forever—something that had seemed impossible!

This morning, with the help of the prophet Isaiah, I pray that we can look at God’s salvation with that same kind of personal, small, fresh shock—even though we’re talking about something that affects every human being. I know that many of us have heard this message hundreds, thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of times. But at the end of our Advent preparations, and as we look forward to this week’s trip to Bethlehem, let’s appreciate anew the shocking way that God saves us.

At the time of our reading, Ahaz was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. He was not a good king in God’s eyes or in the eyes of people. The author of the book of Kings puts it this way, “[Ahaz] did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God … He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made his son pass through the fire, according to the shameful practices of the nations which the LORD had driven out before the people of Israel. He offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every leafy tree” (2 Kings 16:2-4). As he devoted himself to false gods, he was hardly the spiritual role model and shepherd that God wanted his kings to be. I don’t share that context just to drag the guy; it’s important to fully understand the conversation Isaiah and he have in our reading.

We meet up with Ahaz and Isaiah in a difficult time. Rezin, the king of Aram, and Pekah (the son of Remaliah), the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, were harassing Judah and threatening it. Ahaz was scared about what might happen, so scared in fact that we see him ripping parts of Solomon’s temple apart to give to the king of Assyria when Ahaz asked him to rescue them from their enemies. It’s notable, then, that God’s offer of comfort and help falls on such deaf ears.

We see a false humility in Ahaz. God encourages him to ask for something—anything—to prove that God is God and will do what he has promised. What is Ahaz’s response? “I will not ask. I will not test the LORD.” We know that Ahaz is no devout believer. He’s either trying to look good and humble in front of the prophet Isaiah, or he couldn’t care less about anything God has to say (given that he uses parts of the temple to buy earthly protection, I’d personally lean toward the latter).

What is God’s response to this pseudo-piety? The Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. You don’t want one? You’ll get one anyway! And it’s going to be shocking. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel.

Now, what does God mean by this sign, this promise, in the immediate context of Isaiah and Ahaz? It will become clear that God is with them—Immanuel!—in an unexpected way. Like a child born unnaturally—from a virgin—deliverance from their enemies would come unnaturally. It will come quickly, in fact. In less time than it takes for a child to grow up, these two nations troubling Judah would be wiped out.

Like so many prophecies in the Old Testament, this one had an immediate and then an ultimate fulfillment. The immediate fulfillment would be God rescuing Judah from their earthly enemies. The ultimate fulfillment would be the long-promised Savior to rescue all people from our spiritual enemies. And just like the immediate fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment would come in a shocking way that we would not and could not have expected.

We can probably empathize with Joseph in our Gospel for this morning. Mary, his fiancée, was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father. I assume that she told him about Gabriel’s visit, and I can also imagine how much water that story would have held. That was such a shocking piece of information that it was completely unbelievable by human standards; thus, God sends an angel to Joseph as well to confirm the validity of what Mary likely had told him, or at least give him the information he needed to know what was going on. This was no ordinary pregnancy; this was Immanuel to be born of a virgin! God was dwelling with his people! Shocking!

But more shocking than even a virgin birth is that any of this happened at all. As we mentioned earlier, this message may lose some of its shock value because we have likely heard it so many times, but stay with me for a moment. The almighty Creator of the universe had one expectation of us—that we follow his directions flawlessly. We did not do that. You and I are in daily, active rebellion against this all-powerful being. In fact, in our natural state, we can do nothing else. We set our hearts against God, and whether we listen to the voice of our conscience or not, we can do nothing to change course.

So, what would you imagine God’s response could have been, perhaps we might say should have been? Well, what could it have been or should it have been for Ahaz? He had been completely unfaithful to God, was in trouble, and even in those moments, didn’t turn to God for help. So, God could have just left Ahaz and the largely unfaithful nation of Judah to their own devices.

So, too, God would have been fully justified in throwing us aside because of our rebellion against him. Our sin should have meant an eternity of being abandoned by God and all of his blessings in hell. Had he done that, we would have faced unending torment because of our sins, and we would have earned and deserved every single moment of it. It is not wise to thumb your nose at the almighty and, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it, “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

The shock comes in God’s mercy that he was never under any obligation to show and to what extremes he went to show that mercy. We saw God have mercy on Ahaz and the nation of Judah despite their general unfaithfulness to him. In a shocking way, God would rescue them from Aram and Israel and in an even more jaw-dropping way, from Assyria later. But that same love and mercy from God is cranked up to an unfathomable level at the arrival of Immanuel.

This week, we will see the fulfillment of what the angels promised to Mary and Joseph, the fulfillment of what God had foretold by his prophets for generations. God himself would take on our human nature and live among us—Immanuel! God himself, the very one we had sinned against, would bear our sins in his own body. He would subject himself to the punishment that we deserved. Imagine a court case where the person wronged volunteers to take the place of the person found guilty, to serve their jail time or pay their fines. Imagine a situation where the judge does that. Either case would be baffling and shocking! And that’s precisely what happened here, on an eternal scale.

The angel told Joseph to name the child not Immanuel—God with us, but Jesus (Ieshua)—the LORD Saves. Even more than being with us, Jesus’ salvation was his mission. Taking our place was his work. And the free gifts of the forgiveness of sins and eternal life are ours because he did everything that he came to do. Your sins and my sins are gone because Jesus, Immanuel, took them away.

There’s so much about this season and Christmas in particular that is familiar. Comforting traditions and messages we’ve heard over and over again. But, my sisters and brothers, today, this week, and if possible for the rest of our lives, let’s let the shock of God’s mercy bowl us over again and again. Let’s not let this message of God’s forgiveness and the gift of eternal life be old hat and blasé; let the arrival of Immanuel leave you slack-jawed and amazed. Here is God’s undeserved love for you. Here is God’s gift of eternal life. Here is Immanuel—God with us for a time so that we could be with him forever.

Stir up your power, O Lord, and come. Take away the burden of our sins, and make us ready for the celebration of your birth. Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria