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<2022.12> The Prayer of Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer

The Prayer of Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer
December 24, 2007
That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  2 Corinthians 5:19
The Coming of Jesus Christ
We listen to sermons together, talk together about the Bible, and pursue various activities together. But why do we do this? Why do we have this kind of association with one another? Don’t we each tend to leave God’s word behind us as we live our lives? We may read all kinds of other things, but the words of life are there for us even in the midst of difficult circumstances. 
Also, we often hear news of the gospel being spread in various regions of the world, and yet is this what we talk about? If it is not, this is a matter that we need to consider.
As they live their lives participating in the various activities that are in progress in our fellowship, many brothers and sisters find their hearts being restored and their lives being put in order. Yet, when we go astray or become confused in our hearts as we are living in this world with a conscience that has been granted to us by Jesus, ultimately, it is the mission of spreading the gospel that is able to take hold of our hearts with power. Once in a while, we need to reflect upon that mission.
Since I preach from the Bible, perhaps you think of me as a person whose heart is on fire to live at all times for the sake of the gospel. Yet, I am just the same as you. When I am busy with my work, my heart also becomes distant from the mission to preach the gospel, and I lose focus. Every time that happens, my heart is put in order as I read the Bible. 
What about you? Do you merely pay lip service to the task at hand when it comes to fellowship regarding the gospel and the overseas missionary work? Considering the change that came about deep down in your conscience one day as you were living your life, have you ever thought about the kind of suffering endured by Jesus Christ who brought about that change, what was in his heart as he chose to accept this death on our behalf, and how his death lives on in our lives so that many people might hear the gospel? I think it is absolutely necessary for us to remember this mission that is ours, reflect on it, and make a firm resolve in regard to the coming new year. 
It may be that those who have been entrusted with certain work within the fellowship and spend their time busily carrying out that work think of this as a matter related to a lower level of faith. They may think of the need to spread the gospel as an elementary matter of faith. They may consider themselves to be living their lives carrying out tasks that are on a higher level than this, and take the matter lightly since it is something everyone knows.
Yet, the Bible says, “You have been faithful over a little” (Matthew 25:21). As you have been living your life until now, since the words of life where planted in your heart, you may have thought of the need to spread the gospel as basic and not a very big deal. Yet, the small voice that we hear within us speaks the words that can give tremendous strength to our lives and have the power to shake up our entire lives. If we acknowledge this fact, we need to consider the attitude we have had in our hearts in regard to the gospel, and plow over the field of our hearts again and again.
Today is the day that people call Christmas Eve. It has become a crazy evening on which there is the highest consumption of alcohol in all the big cities, a time when sin is rampant to an extent beyond our imagination. Yet, at such a time, we make an attempt to talk about Jesus Christ, for us a very basic matter.
At Christmas time, people are in the habit of singing carols with words like, “Joy to the world” (Joy to the World by I. Watts), and “Sleep in heavenly peace” (Silent Night, Holy Night by J. Mohr). Yet, in the book of Isaiah, which was recorded more than seven hundred years before Jesus Christ was born in this world, we find the following passage.
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.  9:6-7
At the beginning of this passage it says, “For,” indicating a link with what comes before this. So let’s take a look at what it says in the previous passage.
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.  Isaiah 9:1-5
Here it says, “But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.” This is expressed more clearly in Matthew’s Gospel (see 4:14-16). Here it says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,” and, “You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy.” Then it says, “For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken.” This short passage explains the process by which Jesus Christ would come to rule over all the nations of the world in the land of his birth, that is, in the land of Israel. It includes events that have happened in the past and those that are yet to occur. 
After this, the passage goes on to say, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” The Korean Bible expresses this as something that happened in the past tense, but here in English it says that this child “is born” and that “a son is given.” It is expressed in the present tense. There is a different nuance in Korean. In Korean it says, “the matters of state were on his shoulders,” while the English says, “the government shall be upon his shoulder”—the future tense is used (see Isaiah 9:6). There is a difference in the expressions used in each language. 
From the prospective of the prophet who wrote this, it would be correct to say, “a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us,” since it was about seven hundred years later when this actually happened. Yet in Korean this is narrated in the past tense.
Every time I read passages like this, I think about the power of the Old Testament that has been given to us. If the New Testament is seen as the answer to a mathematical formula, the Old Testament poses the question to which this is the answer; it provides the reason for the need for that answer. So when we read this passage, we need to determine whether it is to be read based on criterion of the birth of Jesus at Christmas as seen by the people of this world, or whether it should be read from the perspective of God, who exists in the eternal present, knows all the answers, and, from the time of Adam, gave these words of prophecy regarding the birth of Jesus Christ to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Samuel, David, Solomon, and many prophets and kings.
The words, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given,” are rendered in Korean as, “For to us a child was born, to us a son was given.” When you talk about the time when you were born, you say, “I was born.” You use the past tense “was.” But in English “is” is used: “a son is given.” 
Yet we are living in the twenty-first century, and the time when the son was given has already passed. For this reason it is easy for us to just gloss over Bible passages like this. Yet, we need to think deeply about how the Spirit of Christ moved the heart of the prophet Isaiah to describe this matter. Our sense of the value of the Bible differs depending on how we look at the Bible.
The Precious Value of Jesus Christ
One day when Abraham, the father of faith, had entered the land of Canaan, God said to him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward” (Genesis 13:14), “Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (Genesis 13:17). Then, after his son Isaac was born, God commanded him to “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you” (Genesis 22:2). Then, as Abraham was proceeding towards the place that God showed him, he lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar (see Genesis 22:4).
A long time before this, our forefather Adam, having disobeyed God’s word and eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, came to see that he was naked. At that time, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Having said this, God slaughtered an animal and used the skin to make garments for them and clothe them (see Genesis 3:21).
Should we interpret the Bible through the eyes of a person living now in the twenty-first century? Or should we draw even just a little closer to the perspective of God who moved the hearts of the prophets in each age? So it remains for us to work out from which perspective we are to read the Bible. 
Have you ever thought about what form Christ existed in at the time when God spoke about the offspring of the serpent and of the woman? The One referred to as the Messiah would later deliver up his body into the hands of sinners, but in what form did he exist at the time when God slaughtered an animal and clothed Adam and Eve in its skins? In what form did Jesus, who was to take upon himself the sins of the world, exist in God’s heart as God looked ahead through the eyes of Abraham as he (Abraham) traveled towards Mount Moriah with his only son, and saw the place afar off? Would God have considered the Messiah as precious in some ages and less so in others? As we look back from the twenty-first century to these words that appear in Isaiah chapter 9, we just see this in reference to someone who was at the center of an incident that has already occurred, but will God also see him in that way? 
When God struck Egypt, he told the Israelites to slaughter an animal, daub its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their houses, and then stay inside the house. Then, seeing the blood, he passed over those houses. When God struck Egypt with this plague, in his heart, would he have considered any less precious the One who would someday come to this earth and have to shed his own blood?
As time passed, new ages came in, new people appeared, and new incidents occurred through them, as the image of Jesus Christ was continually being introduced to us. 
Imagine how precious Jesus must have been in the eyes of God as he watched over
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