Isaiah's Christmas Poem (Beautiful Feet)

Jesu Juva

Isaiah 52:7-10                                            

December 25, 2025

Christmas Day                      

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Christmas is a season full of sights and sounds and smells.  Lights and decorations dazzle our eyes.  The music of carols and choirs fills our ears.  And then the smells—the genuine smell of Christmas trees and greenery, warm cinnamon rolls, peppermint or chocolate.  Christmas is a season for the senses.

        And this sensual dimension to Christmas is simply a great reminder that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God has become man.  God has become tangible, visible, audible, and, yes, even smellable in the babe of Bethlehem.  To hear Jesus is to hear God.  To see Jesus is to see God.  To smell Jesus is to smell God.

        The prophet Isaiah wants to add to that list of Christmas sights and smells.  This morning he puts before our eyes and noses something that is decidedly “un-Christmasy.”  “How beautiful,” he writes, “are the feet—the feet of him who brings good news.”  Stinky, smelly, sweaty, swollen, . . . beautiful . . . feet.  There is much to admire about the human foot—truly a marvel of engineering and performance.  But what if we had little foot ornaments dangling from our Christmas trees?  What if this morning’s bulletin artwork was a bare foot?  (I did consider that . . . but no.)

        How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news.  Isaiah’s use of “feet” here is simply a great example of something called “synecdoche.”  No, synecdoche is not some obscure Norwegian Christmas cookie.  Synecdoche is a figure of speech where a part of something is used to represent the whole.  For example, the saying “all hands on deck” uses “hands” to refer to sailors.  The saying “boots on the ground” uses boots to refer to soldiers.

        Synecdoche is also a tool often used by poets.  And poetry is what we have in today’s Old Testament reading.  The prophet Isaiah is not just a prophet, but also a poet.  In this short poem, Isaiah invites us to view Christmas through the lens of prophecy—to hear and to see and to smell what Christmas looked like when it was still far off on the horizon—with seven centuries still to go.  In these words penned by the Prophet we have a lovely poem.  We have history, synecdoche, and Nativity.

        The feet in Isaiah’s Christmas poem are beautiful.  What makes these feet beautiful is that they are attached to messengers—to heralds headed home from the battlefield who have news of victory to report.  Because they have good news—because they come running and shouting and bearing news of peace and happiness and salvation—how beautiful are their feet.  Their sore feet are a sight for sore eyes.  The message they announce is music to the ears of God’s people:  Your God reigns. And this God who reigns is both god and man.  He’s one of us, yet so much more.

        Isaiah’s poem now moves from the messengers with beautiful feet to the watchmen standing high on Zion’s wall.  These watchmen scan the horizon, waiting for beautiful feet to come running.  They sing for joy as they hear the good news of victory. 

But suddenly, Zion’s watchmen see something surprising—something they never expected to see!  Isaiah writes:  From eye to eye they see the return of the Lord to Zion.  Suddenly God is right before their eyes.  They are face to face with the most holy God.  Normally, this would be terrifying.  For sinners to look upon the Lord should mean certain death.

        But here’s a Christmas clue in Isaiah’s poem.  The watchmen look at God—see Him eye to eye—and they sing for joy.  Christmas heralds the dawn of a new day when we can look at God in the manger.  We can hear and smell God in the manger.  A diapered deity nurses at His mother’s breast.  The Word has become flesh.  That’s what we are—flesh.  Or to put it in synecdoche, the Word has become bone.  The Word has become toes and eyes and ears.  In the God-man we see peace on earth, good will toward men.

        In Isaiah’s Christmas poem the people sing for joy.  But where they sing those joyful songs is most unusual.  It is not a church or even a temple.  Isaiah writes: Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem.  “Waste places” are ruins, wreckage, and rubble.  Ruins and rubble were all that remained of Jerusalem after the armies of Babylon did their worst.  But the Lord Himself has come to those who dwell in the ruins and waste places.

        On this Christmas Day there are no ruins or wreckage in this neighborhood. Our communities are proud and prosperous; our homes are warm and secure.  Our situation couldn’t be more different than the poor souls to whom Isaiah preached.

        But we have our waste places too.  The wreckage and ruins that we see most clearly are disasters of our own doing.  We see the smoldering effects of our sin.  Our sin has ruined everything.  Our best intentions, burned to the ground.  Our promises, broken.  Our most meaningful relationships, firebombed and incinerated.  We’ve beaten and bullied those who stand in our way.  We’ve burned our bridges and ignored our neighbor’s needs.  Our sin runs death deep.  The wreckage we have wrought is everywhere: in your family, your work, your faith.  It is despair and destruction of our own doing.

        But do you hear what I hear?  I hear hope according to Isaiah.  I see beautiful feet.  There is joy and good news to report!  Sing out amidst the ruins!  God has become man to save man.  In Jesus, the Lord has comforted His people.  Behold Jesus Christ.  Behold the Virgin’s Son whose cradle is a manger.  He comes to take your sin—and bear its wages for you.  He comes to take your punishment in His body.  Nails, spear, shall pierce Him through; the cross be borne for me, for you.  Jesus dies a sinner’s death in dark despair so that you might sing for joy and have the good news of forgiveness preached unto you.

        But Isaiah’s Christmas poem isn’t just some pie-in-the sky promise of future deliverance.  It’s a done deal.  He’s not saying that peace and joy can be yours someday in the distant future.  No, the good news Isaiah heralds is for the here-and-now.  Today!  Your salvation is a done deal.  The Lord has comforted His people; He has redeemed Jerusalem. 

Isaiah’s Christmas poem gives us one more unforgettable image to describe the glory of the incarnation.  It’s not a foot, but an arm:  The Lord has bared His holy arm before the eyes of all the nations. This is a metaphor that begs to be mined:  The Lord has bared His holy arm, which means the Lord has bared His bulging biceps, which means the Lord has rolled up His sleeve to flex some Messianic muscle.  This He has done to send His Son, to be our Savior, to walk amidst the wreckage of our sin and to bear it all away by His holy suffering, death, and resurrection.  And all this He has done before the eyes of all the nations.  He has done it before your eyes, and ears.  Jesus is the God with a nose, who—at Christmas—is right under our noses.

        St. Paul wrote in Romans ten that beautiful feet are more common than you might guess.  He wrote that every preacher of the Gospel has beautiful feet.  I think of that sometimes when I’m trimming my toenails.  But I hasten to add that your feet are beautiful when they bring you here to where Jesus has been mangered for you—in the good news of the gospel, in the wet wonder of your baptism, in the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.  Taste and see and smell and touch and hear: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. . . full of grace and truth.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Unto You

Jesu Juva

Luke 2:1-20                                               

December 24, 2025

Christmas Eve                                      

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        I probably preach sixty or seventy sermons per year. It’s what I’m called to do.  I preach; and God gets the results. But here’s something you may not know—a little secret I’ll share with you: The Christmas Eve sermon is always my favorite. In fact, this sermon is the easiest of them all.

        It’s easy because you, my hearers, are intimately acquainted with the Biblical text from Luke chapter two.  Some of you know it as well as I do.  You’ve heard it, read it, and recited it annually for most of your life. 

In most sermons, I have to explain all the obscure references.  Where is Emmaus?  Where is Bethany?  Where is Galilee?  But Bethlehem?  Everybody knows about Bethlehem—and Nazareth, naturally.  I must also typically explain the cast of characters.  Who is Ahaz?  Who is Isaiah?  Who is Cyrus?  But Mary and Joseph, angels and shepherds? No introduction needed.  The littlest children here tonight may not know who the governor of Wisconsin is; but they know that when Jesus was born Quirinius was Governor of Syria, Caesar Augustus was the most powerful man in the world, and King Herod was one evil dude.  Whether you know it or not, tonight you came prepared to be preached to.  Thank you.

        This sermon has a two-word title.  It might cause some folks to scratch their heads; but it will make perfectly good sense to you.  It’s entitled, Unto You. And with just that obscure title, many of you know exactly where I am headed.

        Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

        The birth of Jesus has come about—it has come to pass—unto you.  That’s a potent, powerful little phrase.  It was first spoken by the angel to the shepherds.  When those lowly shepherds heard the words unto you, they knew that they were much more than spectators.  They would do far more than casually observe from the sidelines.  The shepherds weren’t just sitting in the audience as the heavens erupted in a blaze of glory.  Because the angel didn’t just say, “A Savior has been born.” The angel added: Unto you.

        Those words have also made their way into your ears.  Those words have come—unto you.  Those words are your invitation into the Christmas account.  Those words make you more than bystanders—more than spectators who just schlepped off to church on a dark December night.  The Babe, the manger, the swaddling clothes—it’s not only a sign.  It’s a sign unto you. When it comes to Christmas, it is all unto you.

        Let’s let the shepherds lead the way.  “Let’s go,” they said, “Let’s go and see!”  And they came with haste.  They found Mary, Joseph, the babe, and the manger.  And they weren’t intruding.  They weren’t imposing on Mary’s post-partem peace.  Because they heard and believed the angel’s words: unto you.  As unto them; so unto you. 

There’s some artwork on the cover of tonight’s program.  This painting illustrates how Christ comes unto you. Of course, it’ a bit too dark to examine this painting in detail, so let me tell you about it.

        At first, it looks like a winter landscape somewhere in the

Bavarian Alps.  But it’s much more than just a landscape.  Oh, sure, there are rocks and trees.  But the trees are ever green—spruce or pine perhaps.  Ascending through the branches of the tallest tree is another tree—the tree of the cross.  It’s a crucifix with our Lord’s arms of love spread wide.  It depicts just how the Savior saved you. The wood of the manger would always give way to the wood of the cross.  Nothing in the world is more unto you than Jesus laying down His life as your sacred substitute.

        Beneath that cross is an audience of one—a human being like us—one who seems so small and insignificant in this grand landscape.  Shepherd-like in insignificance.  This little person is focused intently on the cross of Christ.  Is he praying?  Is he singing?  How did he get there?  There are no horses, no sleigh, no sleigh bells.  What I thought at first were skis scattered on the snow are not skis, but crutches.

        What’s the story with the crutches?  We don’t know.  And yet, we do know.  The crutches remind us of our brokenness and our need for healing.  The crutches remind us that we are sinners living in a sinful world.  We are sinners in need of a Savior.  The crutches remind us of all the “crutches” we use to cope with our fear and despair—all the crutches we lean on instead of leaning on our Lord in faith and trust.

        At Christmas the Word becomes flesh, God becomes man. The Creator becomes a creature.  He came in weakness.  He left behind the power and the glory and made himself small—like the “Tiny Tim” in the painting.  He came with a body like ours that would one day be broken and beaten and bloodied—to redeem us, to love us, to make us His own.  Jesus came unto you to save you. 

In this painting—especially on Christmas Eve—our Savior’s love seems so intensely personal and individual.  This is one reason we’ve dimmed the lights.  It’s not to create a Christmas mood, for heaven’s sake.  But in the darkness all distractions are dimmed.  The world’s chaos is quieted.  And all that remains is the darkness of your sin, and the light of Christ, and the voice of a preacher saying: Unto you. 

        But that solitary person in the painting is also overshadowed by something big. The big rocks in this winter landscape remind me of that time when Peter confessed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  And Jesus said, On this rock I will build my church.  Jesus doesn’t want followers who are privatized and individualized, but a church full of followers, a body of people loved by God—and loving one another.  It was always meant to be more than just you. 

        Look across the winter landscape.  What’s that off in the distance?  You might miss it for the dingy haze of this fallen world.  But there stands the church of Jesus Christ, pointing the way to heaven.  You decided to celebrate Christmas at church tonight.  Good on you.  God bless us, every one.  But if Christmas is the only time you make your way to church, well, you are missing out.  Because here you can let go of your crutches—and let go of your sins—and lean into the love and forgiveness of Jesus—surrounded by saints and angels unseen.

        The shepherds were given signs to look for: the babe, the swaddling clothes, the manger.  You too have been given signs.  You can embrace the sign of your baptism, eat and drink the sign of His body and blood in bread and wine.  You can hear the signs of God’s promises preached and proclaimed from this pulpit—not just once a year, but maybe sixty or seventy times a year.  It sounds a little extreme I know.  But each one of those sermons is composed with the Lord’s help—and all of them are given: unto you.