Jesus Is the Best Kind of Judge

Isaiah 11:1-10

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
    or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
    and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
    and a little child will lead them.
7 The cow will feed with the bear,
    their young will lie down together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
    and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9 They will neither harm nor destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious. 

Jesus Is the Best Kind of Judge

Can you finish this lyric?

He sees you when you’re ________.

You know, when you really think about these light-hearted Christmas melodies that you hear on the radio or that populate your Spotify playlist, they can be kind of creepy. There’s this guy with a beard who watches you while you’re sleeping. He knows things about you that no one else does, including your deepest darkest secrets. He makes a judgment call based on your behaviour to decide whether you will get rewarded or punished. Santa is creepy!

And yet – as much as this is most definitely not a sermon to endorse Santa – some of those North Pole themes sound eerily similar to the kinds of things we hear about Jesus. This is what Isaiah said about Jesus in chapter 11 of his prophecy:

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.[1]

As much as we like to spend these days leading up to Christmas picturing Jesus as that gentle baby lying in the manger, the season of Advent reminds us that that’s only part of the picture and this prophecy from Isaiah is a great example.

Isaiah wrote these words 700 years before Jesus was born. By God’s direction, Isaiah was preparing the people for the arrival of Jesus. The thing is, from Isaiah’s perspective, he sees the whole picture of who Jesus would be like a mountain range in the distance. You can see peaks and valleys and all of them all at once, but, from a distance, it can be difficult to differentiate between them or to know which peak is closer and which one is farther away. You can’t know that until you get closer to them.

From Isaiah’s perspective, he sees all of who Jesus would be all at once. What Isaiah didn’t – and couldn’t – know was that Jesus was going to come to earth not once but twice. The first time, of course, was when he was born in a barn outside of Bethlehem. Jesus’ first coming was at Christmas.

What Isaiah didn’t – and couldn’t – know was that long after Jesus lived and died and rose again and ascended into heaven, he would come again – this time not as the Saviour of the world, but as its Judge.

So, even though these words were written 700 years before Jesus who was born 2,000 years before us, these almost 3,000-year-old words were written for us, to tell us what Jesus will do when he comes again. In a word, he will come to judge.

Isaiah says:

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears.[2]

At first this sounds very different than Santa, right? The song says that Santa sees you when you’re sleeping. Isaiah says that Jesus will not judge by what he sees with his eyes. But it is not as if Jesus is blind to what we do or ignorant about how we spend our time. In fact, it is the opposite.

King David once wrote:

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.[3]

God knows everything about you. There are two ways to understand what Isaiah says here then (He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears[4]). The first is what David brings up: not only can God see what you do, he can perceive your thoughts and know what is in your heart to speak before you can even get your mouth to form the words. In other words, God can see what is in your heart.

So, imagine this. There is a time coming when Jesus will come to judge you. Isaiah warns us what the verdict will be for those who are found guilty:

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.[5]

This is far worse than a lump of coal. This is the death penalty. We’re talking an eternity in hell. The stakes couldn’t be higher.

Jesus is coming to judge you, and he knows everything you do. He knows the lies you tell, the time you waste, the people you mistreat (whether to their face or behind their back). He knows the things you do in secret, the things that nobody else knows that you think you’re getting away with. He even knows the evil thoughts and attitudes that lurk in your heart even when you’re doing the right thing.

You remember how when you were a kid and you got into a fight with your brother or sister your parents would make you say, “I’m sorry,” to each other, so, you’d grumble those words between clenched teeth and with fire in your eyes? Your parents could see right through you. They knew you weren’t sincere.

Our hearts are even more transparent to the Lord. He knows when there’s bitterness in there; when we’re angry or resentful; when we just don’t care about how our words or actions affect other people; when we lust after and covet all the things that we can’t and shouldn’t have. He knows it all.

That’s one way to understand Isaiah when he says,

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears.[6]

In other words, Jesus’ perception goes beyond what he can see. His understanding is deeper than all that he can hear. He knows it all – every secret sin, every ounce of guilt, every source of shame.

That’s kind of scary, isn’t it? That’s a different picture of Jesus than the baby in a manger. But it’s the same person. And there’s another way to understand these words. It is true that Jesus knows everything that you think, say, and do. But he knows even more than that, including all the things that he has thought, said, and done for you.

It is strange, sometimes, to prepare for Christmas by thinking about Judgment Day, but it is important. It was precisely because of Judgment Day that Jesus was born at Christmas. He was born to be your Saviour from sin, to have the Spirit of the Lord rest on him – to be filled with wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, the knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

Jesus understood the cosmic calculus of sin. He knew that the wages of sin is death, that the soul who sins is the one who should die; but he also knew that God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. There is nothing that you or I can do to undo any of the wicked, hurtful, wrong things that we do. But there is one thing that Jesus could – and did – do for you: he was born at Christmas for the sole purpose of dying on a cross in your place. He offered his life as a substitutionary sacrifice for you. He washed all your sins and guilt away by the blood he poured out for you.

So, when Isaiah says, He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears,[7] he means that your behaviour does not determine your final destination. What Jesus did for you does. And because Jesus died for you, you get to look forward to a day when the wolf will live with the lamb, and when the leopard will lie down with the goat.[8] You get to look forward to a day of true and eternal peace in the resting place of the God who loves you enough to sacrifice his Son to save you. Who better to be your Judge than the one who was born to give his life for you so that you could live with him forever?

He is the one, Isaiah says, who will judge the needy with righteousness and who will give decisions for the poor of the earth with justice.[9] If you go through life thinking that your name deserves to be on the nice list, that you could survive the scrutiny of the all-knowing God without him finding any sin, then you have every reason to fear this judge. But if you know that you truly belong on the naughty list – if you recognize how much help you need, how spiritually poor you are – and if you turn to the Lord for that help, he will judge you on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and grant you justice on the basis of his faithfulness to you.

The good news is that we do not have to keep a tally of all the right and wrong things that we do. We thank God that he does not keep a record of our sins. But this season is still about repentance. It’s about preparing our hearts for Jesus to come again. That means coming to him to find our peace (going to church, personal devotions, prayer life at home) and turning from sin to live in righteousness.

That’s what Advent is all about. It’s not about a jolly old fat man who watches you while you sleep. It’s about your eternal Judge who loved you enough to be your Saviour. Don’t be afraid of his judgment. Repent of your sin. Put your selfish thoughts and actions behind you. But put your hope in the Lord. Rally to the “Root of Jesse” and find your rest in him. Amen.

[1] Isaiah 11:3,4

[2] Isaiah 11:3

[3] Psalm 139:2-4

[4] Isaiah 11:3

[5] Isaiah 11:4

[6] Isaiah 11:3

[7] Isaiah 11:3

[8] Isaiah 11:6

[9] Isaiah 11:4

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Climb the Mountain of the Lord

Isaiah 2:1-5

1 This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:

2 In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
    so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
    the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
    let us walk in the light of the Lord.

Climb the Mountain of the Lord

I get to talk about one of my favourite things today – mountains. If I asked you to name a mountain, what is one of the first that would come to mind?

Maybe you think of Everest or K2 in the Himalayas. Maybe you think of more exotic mountains, like Fuji or Kilimanjaro. Maybe for you it’s more local; we have world-class mountains in our backyard, like Robson and Rundle.

Have you ever heard of Mt. Moriah? Mt. Moriah is the mountain that Isaiah talks about in chapter 2. It has been a minute since we read those words. Allow me to read them to you again:

This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.[1]

That is high praise for the mountain of the Lord’s temple. But here’s the thing: compared to all those other mountains we mentioned, Mt. Moriah is kind of unimpressive. Let me put it into context for you:

Mount Everest is, of course, the tallest mountain in the world. It stands at an elevation just north of 29,000ft above sea level. Mt. Moriah has an elevation of only about 2,100ft. Mount Everest is more than 10x the size of Mt. Moriah!

You’ve probably never been to Mount Everest, though. How many of you have been to Banff? Mount Rundle – the big mountain, right outside the townsite – has an elevation of 9,600ft. That’s still more than 4x the size of Mt. Moriah!

Tunnel Mountain – the small hill next to the townsite of Banff – has an elevation of 5,500ft. That’s still more than 2x the size of Mt. Moriah.

Mt. Moriah, in Judah, in Israel, has no business being mentioned in the same breath as any of these other mountains! It would take some serious tectonic shifts to drastically alter the face of the planet for Mt. Moriah to be the highest of the mountains on earth. And yet, Mt. Moriah really is the “chief of the mountains” not because of its elevation, but because of all the things that happened there.

The first time we hear about Moriah is all the way back in Genesis 22, about 2,000 years before Christ:

Then God said [to Abraham], “Take your son, your only son, whom you love – Isaac – and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”[2]

Mt. Moriah is the place where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son, whom he loved, and amazingly Abraham was willing to do it! He obeyed God’s command. He traveled for three days to get to that mountain. He built an altar. He bound his son, and he got so far as to lift the knife to take his son’s life, before God intervened and supplied a substitute sacrifice – a ram to be offered in Isaac’s place.

Not only did Abraham demonstrate his complete commitment to and faith in God, God demonstrated his grace and compassion and love to Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was as good as dead, but God intervened to save his life and to foreshadow a similar future sacrifice.

Fast forward 1,000 years. King David had disobeyed God and aroused his anger, so much so that God sent the angel of death to plague the Israelites with a deadly disease for 3 days. In just 3 days, seventy thousand people died until the angel of death reached Mt. Moriah. There – in the same place where God spared Isaac – God showed mercy again. He relented from his anger and withdrew the angel of death and directed David to build an altar in the same place that Abraham did. And from that day on, David set his sight on that site as the location for the future temple of the Lord.

David didn’t end up building that temple. His son Solomon did. But when that temple was dedicated, the physical presence of God in the form of a pillar of fire and cloud came to rest in that temple on that mountain and it became the permanent residence of the physical presence of God on earth. The temple was the place where sacrifices were made for the sins of the people every day, where God announced his grace to generations of sinners, where people made pilgrimages for 1,000 years.

On Mt. Moriah – the mountain of the Lord – Abraham built an altar. David built an altar. Solomon built a temple. On Mt. Moriah – the mountain of the Lord – God saved Isaac, God spared Israel, God accepted the sacrifices of millions. All three of those historical events would be enough to raise Mt. Moriah’s profile above so many other taller mountains where not nearly as many important events took place.

But there was one more event that would take place in that same place that would spring Mt. Moriah’s profile into the stratosphere, and we read about it – or at least the beginning of it – in our Gospel for today. Just like generations of believers before him, Jesus made his annual pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. He did exactly what the people in Isaiah’s prophecy said:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob.”[3]

On Palm Sunday, Jesus climbed that mountain for the last time. He went there for the same reason that Isaac did 2,000 years earlier – to be sacrificed by his father – only in Jesus’ case there wouldn’t be any last second substitution. Jesus was the substitute for you and me. For sinners like us of every time and place who deserved to die for our disobedience, Jesus died instead. And when he died there, he didn’t just spare Jerusalem or Judea. His death gave life to the whole world. His sacrifice was complete. No more animals would ever have to be slain in Solomon’s temple for sins to be forgiven. Jesus’ sacrifice was all that was necessary, once for all. So that all could live in peace.

Isaiah prophesied about that peace. He said:

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.[4]

Sounds pretty dreamy, doesn’t it? You know that war going on in Ukraine? What if all those tanks were decommissioned and buried in the ground and converted into root cellars? What if all those rifles were turned into rakes and all those guns into gardening tools? So many prayers would be answered! So many people would be safe! Even our lives half a world a way would be so much better financially and emotionally.

That kind of peace sounds pretty dreamy, doesn’t it? That’s the kind of peace that Jesus came to bring – only his peace would be even better. It would be the kind of peace that Paul says “transcends all understanding.”[5] It was the kind of peace that the angels announced at the first Christmas, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”[6]

Peace is what Jesus came to bring, but not a peace between nations. He didn’t come with armies of angels to assert his authority. He climbed the mountain of the Lord on a donkey. He didn’t come to impose sanctions until he bent the nations of this world to his will. He came to make a sacrifice to save sinners like you and me. The peace that we need most is not a peace between nations; it’s a peace between people – sinners – and God.

You know, sometimes in the season of Advent we like to pretend as if we are the people Isaiah was writing to. We try to scrub our brains of the memory of Jesus’ birth and relive the excitement again. There’s something to that. I think there’s value in understanding what Jesus’ birth meant in the moment. But that’s not what Advent is about for you and me.

Jesus is still coming. He came once and when he did he raised the profile of Mt. Moriah above all the other impressive mountains of this world by dying there and securing salvation for every believer everywhere who puts his trust in Jesus.

But for us, the season of Advent is a reminder that Jesus will come again. And Isaiah tells us what he’ll do:

He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many people.[7]

Then they’ll beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Then he will usher in an unprecedented peace.

The sad thing about this promise is that until Jesus comes again, war will continue, blood will still be shed. But the amazing thing about this promise is that in the meantime we can still climb the mountain of the Lord – even if we never book a trip to Israel – and we can still go up to the temple of the God of Jacob – even though it was torn down centuries ago and was never rebuilt. We can still learn his ways and walk in his paths, because the mountain of the Lord’s temple is wherever his Word is.

For an hour on a Sunday this is where we join in with those Palm Sunday worshipers and praise Jesus’ name as he climbs Mt. Moriah for the last time. While you’re eating cereal at the breakfast table, you can be reading about the sacrifice that Jesus made for you on the cross. On your drive to school or work you can be listening to the promises he makes of absolute justice and abiding peace that transcends all understanding. You are the living fulfillment of this prophecy; whenever you instruct your children to come to church or invite a friend to join you for worship, you are saying to them,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”[8]

Jesus already came once as our Saviour at Christmas to make peace between us and our God, to forgive our sin and to give us the certain hope of heaven. Jesus is coming again, this time as King to put an end to all evil and sin, and to usher you into the kingdom he has prepared for you. Until that day, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”[9] Amen.

[1] Isaiah 2:1,2

[2] Genesis 22:2

[3] Isaiah 2:3

[4] Isaiah 2:4

[5] Philippians 4:7

[6] Luke 2:14

[7] Isaiah 2:4

[8] Isaiah 2:3

[9] Isaiah 2:5

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