The images seem so stark, so raw in this Christmas season – terrified citizens fleeing bombs raining down on Grosni. Defiant Muslim rebels, as equally reckless of human life as the Russian enemies whom they are trying to evict, hiding in the middle of a terrified human shield.

We look in one glance at the paper, and in another at the festive lights down our street and are jolted by the contrast – it doesn’t seem right. It can’t be meant to be this way.

Or - while shopping on crowded downtown streets we pass a heap of rags curled up in a corner. It moves - a living statistic of planned de-institutionalising of those with emotional handicaps. How close to God’s design for creation is this?

The child who tries to stay awake in class, but finds it hard because his mother, a single parent caught on the treadmill of the working poor, will have enough trouble scraping together supper for tonight. Oh - it may be a wee bit better this season: food bank shelves are stocked a little fuller, but it’s still meager. What child should have to go hungry all day, while millionaires argue about tax breaks for sports teams?

- A woman gunned down in front of her children by the estranged father.

- The ongoing struggle of refugees trying to find some measure of life.

- A child ridiculed and marginalized by his classmates.

"Peace on earth. Goodwill to all people" says the season.

The way it was meant to be - human conduct, social order, nature’s rhythms.

Go to God’s original design, the creation spec sheet and see how He in perfection made things to be.

The right way - righteousness.

There’s another bible terms which goes hand-in-glove with righteousness. This one is found over 130 times.

Justice.

It means putting righteousness into practice – rolling out God’s design and intent for creation. 3-D action to God’s plan.

The jolly, dreamin’-of-a-white-Christmas, good-will season somehow seems to be a time of year when we desire harmony, togetherness;

when something inside of us surfaces with a craving for more than the struggle and jarring dissonance that so often faces us in the streets and on the news all year long.

Unfortunately, it generally doesn’t get much further than some fuzzy sense of warmth and perhaps wiggling an extra $50 out of peoples’ pockets for the food bank or some other such charity.

Further, though, is where God wants it to go.

Further, bringing righteousness and justice further is what actually propelled Christmas into reality.

Picking up broken pieces, hope to harried lives, peace to ravaged hearts, new opportunity to disadvantaged people, a future to those trapped in dead-end living.....

that is right at the heart and core of Christmas.

We’re in the season of getting ready, preparing for Christmas, the season we know as Advent.

For John and Margo it’s a special "getting ready" season as they laid public claim to Christ here this morning. What does that mean, though, as they leave here? What impact ought that to have? How will it colour their existence?

And for all of us as we get ready — we who claim the title "Christian" - follower of the Christ – what is to be the shape of our "getting ready"?

These weeks of Advent have found us listening to the words of prophet Isaiah. Let us continue to hear his voice as he speaks God’s Words to us.

ISAIAH 42: 1-9 p.821

Without a lot of scholastic jargon, let it simply be said that this passage is referring to Jesus, the One whose birth we celebrate.

And right up front we ready that he will bring justice to the nations.

The Son of God, Son of the Divine Designer/Creator of the Cosmos, will bring justice — bring the rollout of how things are meant to be; turn righteousness from a legal concept into a living reality.

Without a lot of hype or fanfare, he’ll set about his task.

– that’s the basic message of verse 2.

There’ll be no stopping Him, no holding Him back, until that is accomplished.

– no faltering or being discouraged, says v.4 –

If you were to take the time to read through the entire bible in one swoop, reading it with the same determination you would a novel –

- something that, by the way, is really not that terribly large a task. In overall length it’s really not much bigger than a good size book –

If you were to move through the bible, one of the things that you would be struck by is how often God sticks up for the little guy, the disadvantaged person, the one caught holding the short end of the stick.......

Again and again God calls His people to watch out for, to care for, to help the poor, the widow, the orphan, little children.

Again and again and again and again and again......

Words like these: Deuteronomy 27:19 "Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow."

Dozens and dozens of times.

At least as often as the Bible speaks about adultery and maintaining purity in marriage!

Jesus himself laid claim to this mission –

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Luke 4)

Even though it irritated local officials he broke important religious taboos in order to heal the sick and troubled.

He could not but do otherwise.

Matthew 12 gives a wonderful illustration of this. I’d encourage you to read it at some point today.

Coming to bring justice — to roll out righteousness.

It begins on a very personal level with each one of us – for each one of us is caught in a spiritual prison.

The bars of that prison are constructed of sin.

The sentence is eternity and death within those bars.

The only one who can set us free from that prison is Jesus;

Immanuel, God with us, for us, Saviour!

And He does. How wonderfully He does! How gently.

Hear the prophet -

A bruised reed he will not break;

and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. (v.3)

You probably get the picture instinctively – when we’re damaged and hurting, the Servant of God, Jesus, doesn’t just trash us and walk past us.

It is precisely then that He is there for us!

How different from social expectations which tell us that only the strong win. "Try. Try again. Try harder."

"Get a grip" we’re told.

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

That’s the expectation. Which ends up dropping us in the ditch when we run out of gas, or drop by the way exhausted or broken, or when the will to continue simply isn’t there anymore. When we can’t even pretend to smile any longer – Just done.

Someone visiting Palestine saw something that brought this passage home to him. Kids were by the river bank playing with something like what we have here as cat tails - reeds or rushes of some sort. They were cutting them and making toy flutes out of them. But only certain ones - the best ones, could be used. The rest were tossed aside and eventually ground into the mud.

Like so many people we know – the failures, the "problem people." The ones others find embarrassing because they don’t have their ducks in a row; they don’t live up to others expectations.

How quickly they get pushed to the side.

Perhaps as we sit here this morning God is bringing faces to mind of people WE have helped push aside, make fun of, or walk past, or ignore.

Perhaps you’re that person.

If so, I want you to know that the Jesus of Christmas, the Servant of Isaiah 42, has ALL the time in the world for you.

He said this to his listeners:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn from me a life rhythm of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11)

Jesus is in the business of picking reeds out of the mud and restoring them into beautiful flutes that will have a special place in His divine orchestra.

He’s exactly the opposite of Satan, the dark accuser, who relishes in pointing out the weaknesses, the bruises and the faults. Satan condemns us because of our weakness.

God in Jesus takes us, and works precisely through our weakness. Forgiving, restoring, guiding, empowering — His grace shows best in our weakness.

I have a camping lantern that uses kerosene. If it runs dry the wick begins to burn up. It smolders and glows a bit, produces an awful lot of smoke and no light. Let it go and the wick will be ruined. But add new kerosene to the lantern, trim the wick and it will burn brightly again.

That is the work of Jesus in our lives and hearts. The Spirit that Isaiah proclaims as being put on Him, flows from Him into us and restores us.

You. Me.

Then through us into others.

The music of His love alive in us, and into others.

The light of His presence and healing grace overflowing and bringing relief to the darkness in which others are trapped.

That begins on a spiritual level, but carries on.

Don’t be too quick, my friends, to spiritualize and wipe away everything in v.7; the stuff about prison, and blindness and dungeons and darkness.

Yes, Christmas is a time that proclaims new peace for the soul.

But it carries far deeper – to speaking about peace for life over all.

Righteousness and justice through and through.

Jesus works for that, calls for that, and empowers His followers to carry through on that.

Including you - John, Margo.... all of us!

Which means preparing not only for a season, for throwing a few extra cans into the food bank hamper, or cutting an extra check for the Mission, or singing once in the Hospital – but preparing to think longer term.

- How we respond to the deacons’ call for assistance to refugee families.

- What kind of interaction to have with elected officials.

- How you structure your life economically and socially and use the resources God has entrusted to you.

- Where you volunteer in the community, the causes you support and work for.

For at His second coming the Servant of Isaiah 42 will ask how we’ve prepared. Not just for gift giving at Christmas time, but how we’ve prepared for His return. And the yardstick will, somehow, include how we’ve followed through on the prophet’s call for justice.

Matthew 25 - how you fed or did not feed the hungry; clothed or took advance of the naked; visited or ignored those in prison or sick; comforted the distressed ------- Jesus is watching how we respond those our fellow humanity, precious creations of His Father. And he’s taking it very personally.

What you did to the least of these... you did to me.