Lectionary Commentaries for December 24, 2024
Christmas Eve: Nativity of Our Lord

Isaiah 9:2–7 is a familiar text for Christians because of its association with the birth of Christ. The words of verse 6 are memorialized in Handel’s “Messiah.”  In Luke 1:32–33, Gabriel alludes to verse 7 when he announces Mary’s pregnancy. The prophecy contains powerful imagery, including the contrast between darkness and light and the graphic destruction of the implements of war.

Darkness and light

Isaiah 9:2 declares an end of suffering for “the people who walked in darkness.” Darkness symbolizes oppression and hopelessness. For Isaiah’s audience, it had become a way of life. This darkness isn’t just the natural nighttime absence of light. It’s “deep darkness,” a Hebrew word traditionally translated “shadow of death” based on an ancient folk etymology. It’s associated with mines (Job 28:3), prisons (Psalm 107:10), and, above all, the underworld (Job 10:21–22; 38:17).

Then, unexpectedly, “the light shines in the darkness” (John 1:5). For people accustomed to darkness, sudden brightness may be overwhelming, even terrifying. In the midst of anguish, one hardly dares believe things could change. Perhaps that’s why, counterintuitively, the people “see a great light” before it “has shined” in Isaiah 9:2. A distant brightness heralds the possibility of change. Eyes dimmed by darkness can grow accustomed to light before it breaks through. In the words of Emily Dickinson, “The truth must dazzle gradually / or every man be blind.” 

The subtle shift from darkness to light marks this season. The amount of sunlight decreases until the shortest day of the year on December 20 or 21. Some churches even hold a longest night or “Blue Christmas” service on the solstice. But then, almost imperceptibly, the amount of light begins to increase. On Christmas Eve, we find ourselves between the two halves of Isaiah 9:2—we’ve “seen a great light,” but we’re waiting for it to shine in its fullness.

Maybe it’s like this every year, but reasons for despair seem plentiful this Christmas. Unprecedented natural disasters. Global political instability. The unending horrors of war. Do we dare heed the call of Advent again this year and exercise our atrophied hope muscles? To take the risk of believing our best days are ahead, not behind? To scan the horizon for a glimmer of a great light that may yet dawn “on a land of deep darkness”? 

Happy Christmas! War is over!

Although it’s not included in the lectionary reading, Isaiah 9:1 reveals the historical background of this prophecy: the conquest of northern Israelite territories by Assyria in the late 730s BCE. The threat of invasion remained a continuous reality for Judah and Jerusalem. Little wonder that the “great light” of verse 2 turns out to be an end to war. This theme runs throughout the rest of the text.

The first hint appears in verse 3, which compares the people’s joy to “exult[ation] when dividing plunder.” This image recalls the thrill of victorious soldiers who claim the bounty of their defeated enemies. For too long, Israel and Judah had been the victims of such plunder. Now, in a stunning reversal, they experience the same joy—not because they have become conquerors, but because conquest itself is no more.

Verse 5 powerfully imagines the cessation of war by describing the destruction of soldiers’ uniforms. “Boots of trampling warriors” and “garments rolled in blood” evoke the horrors of military violence. Their burning means such violence becomes a thing of the past. This verse recalls another image of the dismantling of military implements in Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares / and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). The reason for this extravagant hope is the advent of a new ruler, described in Isaiah 9:6–7. Their administration will be characterized by wise policy (“Wonderful Counselor”) and a commitment to justice and reconciliation (“Prince of Peace”). 

Jesus was born into a world of imperial violence, not unlike the eighth century BCE. The census that sent Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem was an effort to solidify Roman control (Luke 2:1–2), and King Herod responded to Jesus’ birth by murdering children to maintain his power (Matthew 2:16–18). Then, as now, God’s surprising answer to violence is the fragile hope of a vulnerable infant. “A child has been born for us” (Isaiah 9:6). 

Pre-election postscript

As I write this commentary, it’s two weeks before Election Day in the United States. Not being a prophet, I don’t know who will win or lose that day’s races. It’s difficult at this moment to think about preaching on Christmas Eve, when people sitting in the pews will feel more hopeful or less so, depending on the outcomes of the upcoming elections. Yet, although the future will surely look different by Christmas Eve, it will remain no less certain.

On Christmas and every day, God comes into the messiness of our world, including the messiness of our politics. The grand promises of Isaiah 9:2–7 represented hope for new political leadership. Some biblical scholars even think it was written for the coronation of King Hezekiah. Despite verse 7’s promise of “justice and righteousness … forevermore,” however, Hezekiah failed to enact lasting change. He was succeeded by Manasseh, one of the worst kings in Judah’s history, according to the biblical writers (2 Kings 21:1–18). All human leaders inevitably disappoint. For Christians, the unfulfilled hopes of Isaiah 9 point beyond the human order to the coming rule of God. After all, it is “the zeal of the LORD of hosts [that] will do this” (verse 7).

Our hopes for the future cannot be divorced from our politics, but they cannot be limited to our politics either. Whatever the outcomes of this year’s elections, the promise of Christmas remains the same. We celebrate the limited ways we achieve justice, even as we mourn the persistence of violence and suffering. We walk in darkness, but we strain for a glimpse of the great light that is dawning.

Psalm 96 is a psalm of pure exultation, so very appropriate for Christmas Eve.¹

We are enjoined, indeed the whole earth is enjoined, to sing a new song to the Lord. The waiting is over … sing a new song. And if this very old song is not sung as a new song on this occasion, we miss the spirit that is at the heart of the psalm.

So, we might well ask, How shall we sing a new song? In many ways Psalm 96 provides for us a model of how to praise. We sense this in the expansive use of imperative verbs throughout the psalm. And we are helped in understanding this model by James Mays, who, in his book on the theology of the Psalms,² invites us to see the fundamental purpose of praise in the Psalter as threefold:

• doxological,
• confessional, and
• evangelical.

We see these three purposes clearly at work in Psalm 96.

Praise is doxological

Doxology is present whenever the Lord is glorified. Psalm 96 begins with doxology, and praise is present everywhere. Throughout the psalm, the Lord is the singular object of praise. The first three verses direct us to sing to the Lord… bless the name of the Lord… declare the glory of the Lord. Indeed three times in this short psalm (verses 3, 7, and 8), we are told to declare God’s glory (kebod in Hebrew, doxa in Greek). The name of “the LORD” is repeated 11 times. And then, in verse 9, we are told to “worship” the Lord, the central work of doxology.

Praise is confessional

As with all psalms of praise, Psalm 96 confesses who God is and what God has done. We pray the psalms not only as praise but also that we might better know God.

The content of any psalm’s confession is often found in those verses or clauses that begin with the conjunction “for” or “because.” These verses offer up the reasons we are called upon to render praise. We might call these “key” clauses because in Hebrew, this conjunction is ki.

Verses 4 and 5 both begin with “for …”—ki. Verse 4 tells us that we worship the Lord because the Lord is great. But the single world “great” is not sufficient. The reason is expanded: The Lord is greater than other gods. In fact, those gods are not gods at all. Those gods are idols. The Lord made the heavens. There is almost always a narrative aspect to confession. Confession often recalls other parts of the biblical story or, in this case, the prophets or other psalms.

Confession is also present in verse 10 in what we are invited to say among the nations.

“The world is firmly established,” tying the creation of the earth to the creation of the heavens in verse 5. Creation is, here and elsewhere, not only a statement about the cosmic past; it is a promise for the present and the future: “It shall never be moved!” Confession moves in the direction of promise. And part of the promise is, surprisingly, that judgment is not a threat, as we so often hear it, but rather, good news.

This reality of the psalms came as a great surprise to C. S. Lewis in his Reflections on the Psalms.³ The final verse, 13, echoes the promise of judgment. Judgment arises from equity, fairness, righteousness, truth, and justice. This positive judgment is what we experience in the coming of the Lord—in the psalms, at Easter, and incarnationally at Christmas.

Praise is evangelical

Psalmic praise serves as proclamation of and witness to the good news of God. When we name the tradition and the “Good News” (the Gospel or evangel) into our lives and into the lives of those around us, our praise is evangelical.

Look carefully again at the grammar of the verbs in Psalm 96. The numerous imperatives are addressed to the faithful, instructing them to proclaim the reality of God to others. And who are these faithful who are instructed to give praise?

In verse 1 and again in verse 9, they are “all the earth.” We rightly assume this refers to all the people of the earth as in verse 7: “O families of the earth.” The very use of the word “families” rather than “nations” lends a positive assessment to all the peoples of the earth. Notably, the very ones who are called to praise are also, as the “nations” and “peoples,” the recipients of the words (see verses 3, 5, 10).

But most wonderfully in Psalm 96, “all the earth” is not limited to humanity. In verses 11–12 the Lord who made the heavens and the earth instructs the very creation to offer praise. Not only the general heaven and earth, but also the very sea is invited to roar. And this roaring is heard not as threat to God but, rather, as praise.⁴

And then, for good measure, the field is invited to exult: the ordered praise of cultivation. And just as the heaven and earth are joined by the chaotic sea, so also the cultivated field is joined by the wild trees of the forest. The praise of the Lord knows no boundaries!

All are part of God’s good work, and all are invited to sing praises. This Good News ensures that praise is not limited or confined to either the human or the orderly. A new song indeed!

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for December 24, 2017.
2. See chapter 4, “Praise Is Fitting: The Psalms as Instruction in Praise,” in James L. Mays, The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 61–71.
3. C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958), 9–10.
4. William P. Brown, Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox), 128–29.

Regardless of how one decides the question of the authorship of the letter to Titus, it is easy to spot a characteristic Pauline theme: the grace of God (verse 11). In keeping with what we see elsewhere in the undisputed letters of Paul, the author depicts grace as an occurrence or an event—it “has appeared” (ephephanē)—rather than a static disposition on God’s part. Grace here is not so much a divine character quality as it is a divine manifestation: a personal encounter with “all” people (verse 11) in the midst of history’s unfolding.

Does “all” mean all people here, without exception? It is difficult to say for sure. On the one hand, there are places in Paul’s letters that seem to suggest he is confident some people will be lost (see especially 2 Thessalonians 1:5–10). But on the other hand, as scholar Richard Bell has argued with regard to Romans 5:12–21, Paul’s “concept that all have participated in Christ’s death led him to the view that all will come through to salvation”¹—a view that may also be implied in Ephesians 1:10 and Colossians 1:20.

Perhaps the best we can do is adopt a posture of reverent agnosticism about the fate of unbelievers and pray that God’s mercy proves more generous than we can imagine or expect. As the Pauline scholar Douglas Campbell says, “There is every ground for hope, and … we can trust the one who is in charge of this [salvation] process to do a good job on that day [of final judgment].”²

If salvation comes to some or all, what are its effects? If we are saved from divine judgment and the consequences of our sin, what are we saved for? That is the clear focus of this entire passage. Believers have tasted the grace of God, which produces certain results: We are trained by grace to turn away from morally reckless behavior (verses 12a, 14a) and to adopt instead habits of self-control, worshipful piety, and beneficial acts of charity and justice (verses 12b, 14b).

Lurking in the background here may be the story of Israel’s exodus from slavery in Egypt. In the exodus narrative, Israel is not simply rescued from bondage and oppression in order to be given total freedom of lifestyle choice. No, the liberation is for the sake of worship. “Let my son [Israel] go that he may serve me,” the Lord says to Pharaoh (Exodus 4:23). As the Jewish scholar Jon Levenson has put it, “The point of the exodus is not freedom in the sense of self-determination, but service, the service of the loving, redeeming, and delivering God of Israel, rather than the state and its proud king.”³

In the Titus passage, God’s salvation is focused on and comes to effect through the person of Jesus Christ (verses 13, 14a). More explicitly than any other verse in the New Testament, verse 13 here may refer to Jesus himself as “God.” Grammatical and contextual considerations seem to be in favor of taking the phrase “our great God and Savior” as a title for Jesus: It is he, this human being, who is the God and Savior of the world, who redeemed us by the gift of himself on the cross (compare Galatians 2:20).

But more than that, he is the focus of our expectation for the end of history: “The blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory” of Jesus is what believers are waiting for as we busy ourselves in the meantime with prayer and acts of service (verse 13). Traditionally, Christians have referred to this eschatological hope as the “beatific vision,” the sight of God that will be sheer bliss for those who attain it.

It is in light of this hope that believers now work to let go of sinful habits and distractions. As another New Testament writing says: “All who have this hope in [Christ] purify themselves, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). And as the Lord himself says in the Sermon on the Mount, drawing a connection between ethics and the eschatological vision: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). This is the ultimate aim of the grace of God—to bring us all to that heavenly country where, together with all the saints, we may see God “face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Notes

1. Richard H. Bell, “Rom 5.18–19 and Universal Salvation,” New Testament Studies 48 (2002): 432.
2. Douglas A. Campbell, Paul: An Apostle’s Journey (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 169.
3. Jon D. Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism: Jews and Christians in Biblical Studies (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 144.