This Christmas we may need a lot of things. We may need more money, deeper family connection, a new job, or maybe our health back. This Christmas we may need a lot of things. But what we really need is peace; a settled peace that nothing can shake. And that is the message of that first Christmas, and every Christmas, that we need so badly. That peace on earth is possible. Not the absence of war, but a deeper peace even than that. The peace on earth promised on that first Christmas means an existence without fear. A peace that brings with it light and hope and doesn’t depend on us having it all together, being in control, or knowing what the coming year will bring. Peace with God again, and peace with one another again. That’s why we need Christmas so badly. Because what we really need is peace - our Prince of Peace.

We’ve been going through the titles of Jesus in Isaiah 9 as a church this Advent season, anticipating the celebration of Christmas and the coming of our Lord. In Isaiah 9 the anticipated child to be born to save Israel is named ‘Everlasting Father’: what does it mean for this baby to be called our Everlasting Father? It can be difficult for us when we hear of God being referred to as ‘Father’ because we immediately imagine our own earthly fathers and place our own experiences, good or bad, of our own fathers onto God. So let’s look at what the text has to say for us, pointing us towards our immensely good and Everlasting Father.

The holidays often come with a storage problem. Where do we put all of the stuff we asked for or didn’t ask for? And here is what is also true: when it comes to our lives, our thoughts and our emotions around the holidays, we can also have a storage problem. We are burdened and stressed out by all sorts of things. Some things that we brought on ourselves but a lot of things we didn’t ask for. Finishing school well, holiday travel, Christmas parties, cleaning the house, endless gift lists, stuff to bake, stuff to buy. Maybe Christmas reminds us of hard relationships, or loved ones we have lost. People who are in our home that we wish would leave. A child who is far away from home. When it comes to all of the burdens, stresses and sorrows that can get amplified by the holidays, we can have a storage problem as well. Sometimes we just don’t know where to put our burdens, our struggles, our sorrows or our stress. But we have to store them somewhere. So we carry around fear as a pit in our stomach, we carry hurt in our hearts, and we carry burdens and responsibilities on our shoulders. And yet the very meaning of Christmas, the good news of what actually happened on that first Christmas, offers an invitation that all who are burdened in life need desperately to hear and to consider. We need Christmas and we need the Mighty God.

We need Christmas this year. Not more presents, or more nutmeg or peppermint, or movies about saving Christmas. We need Christmas. We have always needed Christmas, even BEFORE the very first Christmas. In fact, Christmas—God with us, as one of us, to save us—was the plan for our world all along. 700 years BEFORE the very first Christmas, in the time when the prophets wrote about the coming of that baby in a manger, people were feeling the same way as we are today. A maniacal king, King Ahaz, ruled the land. Faith, religion and spirituality had stopped providing any answers because they had become a harmful mix of idolatry and evil and just downright awful. There was war and struggle and fear of war. And in the midst of that, a prophet of God most High named Isaiah received a promise to pass on to God’s people that we now use as one of our main Christmas texts. For the next four weeks, through the time we call Advent leading up to Christmas, we will talk about each of these names for Jesus who came to offer us forgiveness of everything we have ever done, past present and future. To give us a new start and bring us back into right relationship with God. That is the good news we call the gospel. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas. And each one of these names tells us something about that good news! The first name for the coming Savior Jesus is: Wonderful Counselor. We need a Wonderful Counselor this year.