Show Notes
Rev. Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
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Well, tonight I want to read
to you from God's word three different passages,
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too short and one a little bit
longer, too from Isaiah and one
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from Luke, and as we read
these passages tonight it's my hope that you
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will have a clearer understanding of what
they mean how they connect. We will
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also be singing low how a rose
are blooming at the end of a sermon
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and prayer hymn that connects these passages
in a helpful way. So let's begin
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in God's word in Isaiah. First, Isaiah, verse eleven, and we
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have prophecies here of the coming Messiah, which is, of course, Jesus
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Christ. Isaiah Eleven, verse one
comes up particularly in the hymn, but
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I will read one through five.
There shall come forth a shoot from the
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stump of Jesse and a branch from
his roots shall bear fruit, and the
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spirit of the Lord shall rest upon
him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
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the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear
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of the Lord, and his delight
shall be in the fear of the Lord.
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He shall not judge by what is
I see or decide dispute by what
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his ears here but with righteousness.
He shall judge the poor and decide with
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equity for the meek of the Earth, and he shall strike the Earth with
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the rod of his mouth and with
the breath of his lips. He shall
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kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be
the belt of his waist and faithfulness the
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belt of his loins. Continuing in
the Prophet Isaiah, let's turn to chapter
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thirty five, two verses. Here
the Wilderness and the dry land shall be
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glad. The desert shall rejoice and
bloom like the Crocus, shall blossom abundantly
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and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to
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it, The Majesty of Carmel and
Sharon. They shall see the glory of
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the Lord, The Majesty of Our
God. And now to the Gospel of
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Luke Luke, Chapter two. Luke
two versus eight through twenty. And in
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the same region, there were shepherds
out in the field keeping watch over their
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flock by night, and an angel
of the Lord appeared to them and the
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glory of the Lord shone around them
and they were filled with great fear,
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and the Angel said to them fear
not, for behold, I bring you
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good news of great joy that will
be for all the people, for unto
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you is born this day in the
city of David, Savior who is Christ,
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the Lord, and this will be
a sign for you. You will
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find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger. And suddenly
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there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly host, praising God and
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saying glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace among those with whom
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he is pleased. When the angels
went away from them into heaven, the
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shepherd said to one another, let
us go over to Bethlehem and see this
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thing that has happened, which the
Lord has made known to us. And
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they went with haste and found Mary
and Joseph and the baby lying in a
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manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that was
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told them concerning this child, and
all who heard it wondered at what the
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Shepherds told them Mary. But Mary
treasured up all these things, pondering them
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in her heart, and the shepherds
returned glorifying and praising God for all that
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they had heard and seen. As
it had been told to them, what
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a blessing God's Word is the Old
Testament and the New Testament? I'm not
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two angry books yelling at one another, but two friends, even one book,
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United Together, speaking the same truths, of the same things. In
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many way is the Old Testament and
the New Testament. I should say how
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many times Old Testament, the New
Testament has been compared to a flower,
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an image that comes up in some
of these, in the Isaiah thirty five
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passage, a flower that is begins
small as a bud but comes and and
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fully blooms in the New Testament,
not two different things, but the one
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and the same, though in different
forms. The unity between the Old Testament
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and the new testament is a prominent
theme throughout the Gospels, throughout the whole
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New Testament. We are constantly being
reminded in the stories about Jesus's birth that
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these are things that have been prophesied
for a long time. In Zachariah's prophecy
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that we read this morning from Luke
I'm he points this out. Zachariah,
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the priest of the Lord, says
that these things that he is now about
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to see are things that the prophets
had spoken from of old, and this
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is one of our great hopes and
one of the great proofs that these things
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are true. In the Song Lo, how rose are blooming, verse two
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says I'Daiah Twas foretold it the rose
I have in mind, and he,
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the author, perhaps authors of this
hum are pointing this out. This this
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common and frequent Biblical theme that the
prophets here, Isaiah in particular, a
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speaks of these things that are to
come. Well, if you're like me,
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this particular hymn low, how a
rose are blooming, is something you've
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probably heard a lot and wondered what
it means. The beginning of the hymn
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is a little confusing, and perhaps
she felt the same way when you read
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it or heard Isaiah about Carmel and
Sharon and a crocus and all of these
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things. What do these things mean, these things that are in Isaiah and
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then reflected in the hymn and another
passages of scripture and other hymns and prayers
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that we sang and pray? What
is this hymn? Perhaps you've also noticed
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about this particular hymn, if you
if you know it, that there is
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something about it that is lovely and
peaceable, peaceful, but there are is
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also a melancholiness to the tune,
as one rider puts it, and that's
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appropriate, because there are some darker
themes in the hymn and in these prophecies,
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then the coming of Christ. But
ultimately they do speak of great joy,
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things that do bring us peace and
rest and are truly lovely. So
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what is Isa Zaiah foretell? What
is he prophesying? How do we find
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these things in what are would he
to understand of Jesus? Well, the
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first answer this question. I'll start
with Isaiah thirty five. In Isaiah thirty
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five we have this very remarkable image. There's promise of a future with God.
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The wilderness and the dry land shall
be glad. The desert shall rejoice
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and blossom like the CROCUS. Older
translations, the King James Version and Geneva
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Bible, have it as rose,
which is why the hymn says it that
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way. Other flowers have been suggested
to will say crocus for the moment.
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The desert shall rejoice and bloom like
the CROCUS. It shall blossom abundantly and
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rejoice with joy and singing. We
of course live in a desert and know
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exactly what this is like when the
rains come and all the Palaverti's turn yellow
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and the cactuses flower, and it's
a it's a beautiful, remarkable thing.
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But there's something that is a whole
nother level here that is described in Isaiah
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thirty five. It's not just the
desert plants flowering, but, if crocus
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is meant here, even plants that
don't really belong in the desert are blooming
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and growing and and flowering. In
deed, in verse two it even says
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they shall blossom abundantly, and these
will rejoice with joy and singing the flowers
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abundantly there, even singing and and
rejoicing this glory that is in the land.
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This is because of what God will
do for his people, what God
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will do for us, bringing us
out of the Wilderness and into this land
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of plenty, changing something that was
dry, a waste land, and bringing
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it into something fruitful. Now,
this image of roses, crocuses blossoming in
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the desert is similar to the image
in Isaiah Eleven. There we read that
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out of the stump of Jesse a
branch will shoot forth and bear fruit.
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This is God's way of saying that
something that out of something that seemed to
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be dead stump of a tree,
something that was cut down God would bring
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life. Of course we remember that
in the profits there is not only this
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note of and hopeful note of the
future, but also warning about coming and
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present judgment for God's people. There's
a reason why this tree is cut down.
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It's because of the faithless of God's
people, the sins which had piled
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up. If you have ever seen
a genealogy chart or imagine a family trees
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we call them I'm imagine at the
very bottom Jesse right, and then after
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Jesse David, and then after David
Solomon, and then the tree starts splitting
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more and more and more, and
eventually this tree, in this monarchy in
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particular, was so corrupt and so
evil that God just shops the whole thing
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down, this great kingdom of David
coming to an end in judgment. The
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trouble with this image the is not
only if you live in the kingdom in
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are being overrun by your enemies,
that, of course is a trouble,
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but theologically there's a challenge here too, and that's that God had promised to
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David that his son would sit and
reign on his throne forever, that David
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would have this place in history and
and that God would do his work through
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him. And now even David seem
would seem to have been a cut off,
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and all that is left is the
stump of Jesse. And then Isaiah
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speaks in chapter eleven and says out
of this judgment, out of this death,
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comes this shoot, this new life
spring forth and would bear much fruit.
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Taking these two images then together the
hymn. That's what the hymn does
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in verse one and it says Lo, how a rose are blooming from Isaiah
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thirty five, from tender Stem Hath
Sprung of Jesse's lineage coming. So the
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is sort of merges these two images
together and you imagine this shoot coming up
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out of the stump of Jesse and
it's a rose, a rose in the
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desert, these two biblical images coming
together. Low, how a rose are
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blooming from tender stem, have sprung
of Jesse's lineage coming. As men of
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old have sung, it came a
flower bright amid the cold of winter,
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when half spent was the night.
Verse Two, Isaiah Twas foretold it.
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You See, what the hum is
doing here is it's simply giving to US
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scripture. It's telling us that these
are things, like Zachariah said this morning,
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these are things that were prophesied of
old. Well, who was this
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rose, or what is this rose
exactly? What is this stem that springs?
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Who is this stem that springs from
Jesse? Well, it is,
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of course, Jesus, and that's
what we learn in the gospels. That's
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what we learn in Luke and the
other gospels. Is that this one that
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everybody was waiting for. He is
here, he is here, and the
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miraculous nature of a of a desert
s, what's the word? I'm going
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to carpet of flowers or a stem
coming up out of a dead stump.
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These things are paralleled in the historical
birth of Jesus from a virgin or of
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his cousin John, who came to
prepare the way, from mother who's too
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old to have children. These and
other miracles, like the angels declaring the
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glory of Lord, all of these
things are announcing that the stem has from
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the rose is bloomed, Christ is
here, and that's why the angels speak
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as they do. These abundant blossoming
in these desert places, this light shining
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in dark places, all of these
images are pronounced by the angels when they
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say glory to God in the highest
and on Earth, peace among those with
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whom he is pleased. This aunt
the the the identification of Jesus, US
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in the Gospels, in Mary and
in these events, is reflected in the
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hymn in verse in verse two.
Isaiah Twas fore told. It the rose.
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I have in mind with Mary.
We behold it. The Virgin mother
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kind to show God's love a right, she bore men, a savior when
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half spent. was the night the
shepherds heard the story proclaimed by angels bright
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how Christ the Lord of Glory was
born on Earth. This night to Bethlehem
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they spread or sped and in the
manger found him as angels hair, as
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Angel Harold's said. The image of
the night is just is is similar to
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the ones we have considered. It
already stem from stump, flower, from
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desert, light from dark. These
are the miraculous things that God does in
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Christ. And then, in the
middle of verse three of the Hymn,
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all these questions are settled very precisely
when it says this rose, this stem,
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this baby, is Jesus. As
the Scriptures say, Christ the Lord
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of Glory was born. Now,
have you ever been in a field of
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flowers or stuck your nose into to
a rose. I hope so. That's
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a good thing. I am told
that when you step off the plane in
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Hawaii that you can smell the flowers
in the air. This single flower,
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though, our savior does more than
that. The fragrance, the sweetness of
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our Savior, of of the Gospel
that he brings, of the glory that
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comes into Earth, of the peace
that settles into our hearts, fills everything
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and, as the hymn says,
it dispels glorious in with glorious splendor,
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the darkness everywhere. Our noses that
God has given us are powerful and,
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though they are, of course,
counter examples, they tend to warn us
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when things are bad and draw us
very close into things that are good.
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We get the hown in and stick
our noses in it, and when something
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is reviling, we pull away.
Well, nothing has been more good than
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this prophecy fulfilled in Christ, this
new David, this desert rose. It
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is the one true man, yet
very God. And why is he so
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good? Well, as the scriptures
say, and is reflected in the hymn,
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from sin and death. He saves
us from sin and death. He
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saves us and lightens every rose.
This reminds us that the sweetness of Christ
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is not only found in his loveliness, but in his love toward us,
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and we see that. And the
way that our lovely Jesus was despised,
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the holy one was cursed, the
kingly one brought very low, and these
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are, of course, reflected in
the melancholy. Are The sadder notes of
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the song. But the end is, of course, peace, because there's
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hope in the things that God does. This flower is one that does not
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fade, even though it would,
I be cut off, separated from life.
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It lives again. Our Savior lives
again and he lives in glory.
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This kingdom that he establishes is one
that does not fail, and this is
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the promise of God. The end
of the hymn says, oh, savior,
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King of glory, who dust our
weakness know bring us at length.
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We pray to the bright courts of
Heaven and to the end endless day,
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the promise of God. In other
words, in Christ it was foretold and
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Isaiah I'm heralded by the angels and
continues to spread throughout the world. The
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Fragrance of this gospel has not stopped
dispelling the darkness. It has not failed.
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God continues to do his work through
this word. The promises that he
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made in Isaiah and before that to
David and before that to Abra Him,
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and even before that to eve and
to Adam and even before that to himself.
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These promises and covenants that God has
made have not fallen apart, but
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have been fulfilled completely and the flowering
of Christ, and now the only thing
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left is to bring all these things
to completion. And so that's why this
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hymn leads to prayer, proclaiming the
ways in which God has blessed us and
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concluding with his prayer that he would
continue to bless us. In this way,
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it asks that Jesus would continue his
work in US and in the world,
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and that's why we celebrate him and
his life and all that he has
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done. Let us pray
