Let the Government Rest on His Shoulders (Isaiah 9, Luke 1)
Christmas is the announcement that the world in which we live is destined for a greater reign and rule. The way things are is not be the way they are supposed to be, and Christmas is the announcement that the times, they are changing.
The Book of Isaiah, written sometime in the eighth century before Jesus was born, describes his appearing as the dawn of light in darkness: freedom from oppression (v.4), a wonderful harvest (v.3), the end of violence (v.5)—all leading to this: good governance (v.6). "The government shall be on his shoulders.” The way of things in our world will no longer rest upon the shoulders of the bloodthirsty but upon the shoulders of the Messiah who will bring righteousness, justice, and stability (v.7). But to understand the power of this promise you first have to understand what it signified in Biblical History: an entirely different kind of king and a new way of governing.
Human kings are the object of skepticism in the Bible. As a matter of fact, the story of the Scriptures in the Old Testament revolves around the ineffectiveness and brutality of earthly kings. When the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 8) responds to Israel’s desire for a king he warns them of slavery and disaster ahead. Human kings cannot place the government on their own shoulders, they need our shoulders. God’s people, who already had a king—the Lord Himself—wanted Saul instead. Eventually a better King, David, rose to the throne, a man after God's own heart whose downfall only underlined the problem with human kings: even the good ones could not bear the weight of our need for a king. The earthly un-fit kings were a problem not just because they were flawed but because they needed the resources of their subjects. They needed to be empowered and enthroned to function as Kings. Human beings have to make them great. The God who comes to reign in the Incarnation (literally, the in-flesh-ing), will reign in a way that will fulfill our earthly desires for a king by reigning as a Messiah. Still the desire for a heavenly king that reigns for us like an earthly king is hard to shake.
About a hundred years ago in what is now modern-day Papua New Guinea, the first “cargo cult” sprang up among the recently colonized people. Guineans working in plantation fields observed the practices of British colonial officials and believed that the cargo delivered to them were signs of divine favor. Guineans began to mimic some of the behaviors of the British in order to gain god's favor, and his cargo, too. They marched in formation, adopted colonial forms of life including one ritual which included sitting around a table rigidly performing the British tea time. They associated the actions as causing the blessing of cargo, and if they showed themselves to be equally devoted, the god of all the cargo would visit his goodness upon them. Though they were devoted to following the British example: marching in formation, military drilling, forming their own knock-off royal uniforms, the ships and cargo never came and the religion eventually died out.
It would be a mistake to dismiss this entirely as a primitive belief system, because it’s entirely consistent with modern spirituality. Both religious and irreligious people, in public polling, report their belief in a higher power that governs the world by responding to our religious or moral technique. Meaning that God gives blessings as a result of good people living good lives. But Christians can also be prone to that same misunderstanding. Here’s a thought experiment: when you think about “how you’re doing” in your Christian life, do your thoughts immediately jump to external behaviors rather than the posture of your heart? When difficult circumstances enter your life do you grieve them or are you filled with bitterness because you’ve earned better? When we practice our spirituality as a performance that earns God’s good governance/blessings we will naturally struggle to experience joy or warmth in our worship because whatever God gives is no longer grace but what is owed to us. A person might rejoice over the first regular paycheck she receives but at some point it becomes a bland everyday experience. Jesus’ governance of his Kingdom is not compelled by our good works but is the reason for our good works. We were in darkness, and light has dawned.
Eight hundred years after Isaiah’s prophecy the Gospel of Luke puts the same words in the mouth of the Angel Gabriel as he tells Mary about her role as the bearer of the Christ child. She is the bearer of this norm-defying King whose Kingdom’s strangeness turns the world upside-down even in our day.
Jesus is born vulnerable and weak in form. He is entrusted to a people who are capable of doing him harm. He is born to end oppression but is himself ripe for oppression, violence, abuse, the worst that humanity can do. God’s government is shouldered in vulnerability and suffering. He acts first by plunging his kingship into a world that rejected it (John 1.9-10, 3.19-20). Under his government the Prince of Peace and the Mighty God and the Everlasting Father, and his Kingdom will have no end (v.7). These are not the titles of an earthly King! He doesn’t need to be enthroned; he cannot be empowered by us or indebted by our goodness. The entire point of this prophecy from Isaiah, now given to a woman of little influence, in a small, unimportant town (Micah 5.2), could not be more clear: This kingship is a reversal of every human kingship they had ever experienced.
The light in the darkness was a King who came not to be served but to serve. Not to be crowned by human hands but to crown human hearts with salvation. The “light” that this King brought was the God who provided the cargo first, the most important of all being his presence among them—placed in a food box for beasts in a stable in a one-stoplight town. He was the blessing before they did anything to deserve it. He was crowned not by their calling out for him but in their response to his calling out for them. His government was not on their shoulders but on his.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a meditation on the Incarnation, put it this way:
“God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof… God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous…God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”
Before the coming King brings an end to the violence and cruelty of the world he brings an end to the oppression that rules in our hearts—which tell us every day that you and I are only as blessed as we are deserving. He governs as a King we cannot control and whose loving reign we cannot earn and therefore cannot lose. When it dawns on us that we do not need to get his attention, and when we learn that we cannot control him, we will finally be able to trust him.
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Lord grant that we might more deeply understand our relationship to your reign and rule. Uncover our bitterness and uproot it, connecting us more deeply to your gracious kingdom. Be a light in our darkness; and when the light illuminates hearts that are resistant to your way—move us. May we trust you not only as Savior, but King. May the government rest on your shoulders, not ours.