“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder.” (Isaiah 9:6)
Have you heard of “the theory of everything”? The theory of everything is a hypothesis that tries to explain and link together all physical aspects of the universe. Einstein was the first one who attempted to develop such a theory, and scientists, without any success whatsoever, have been working on it ever since.
If you think about it, you and I can explain better than anyone what links all things together in the universe. It’s the Bethlehem Child, Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us, “And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:17) Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh, through Whom all things were brought into existence, and by Whom the universe continues to operate.
Isaiah proclaims the glorious news that the “Answer to Everything” has been born. We call this mystery of our faith the incarnation, meaning that God, Who is bigger than all things, received a real human body when He was conceived and born of the virgin Mary. The absolute fullness of God, Who fills heaven and earth, was contained in the tiny infant body of Mary’s Son.
Jesus is the answer. He’s the missing piece of the puzzle to life that scientists, with all their knowledge, can never discover. Only God can provide the answer, and He did that when He came into the world that night long ago as the true Son of God, and the true Son of Mary.
In Isaiah’s birth announcement, we see that Jesus is the answer, when he tells us, “And the government will be upon His shoulder.” To understand what this means we go to the last chapter of Matthew, where the risen Christ says: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18)
Talk about a unifying principle which governs the universe—Jesus Christ has power and authority over all things! In Ephesians Chapter 1 we are told that Christ is “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.” (verse 21)
But when Isaiah says that “the government will be upon His shoulder,” we’re being told that not only does the Child have all authority, but that He shoulders the burden of everything. The little Child in Mary’s arms has big enough shoulders to take upon Himself the sin of the world, as well as the strength to deal with all the burdens that result from sin.
No matter what day the calendar says it is, we all have burdens, and our shoulders are simply not big enough to carry them. And that is our problem. We put pressure on ourselves to try and carry them. Christmas Day is a day, like every other day, to confess our sins and weaknesses, and to rejoice that in this newborn Child we find big-enough shoulders to carry everything.
The guilt that’s been eating you up? Give it to Him. He already carried it to His cross and washed it away with His blood. The impending death that frightens you? His shoulders are big enough to handle even that. That problem you can’t solve? Let Him carry it. He wants to, and He can.
God came into our world so that one day we could live in His world. That is finally the ultimate answer to everything—life forever in fullness of joy where all things are restored to the way God intended them to be all along.
Unto us a Child is born! Jesus absolutely is the Answer to Everything! How wonderful it is!
is pastor of Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan, and president of the Church of the Lutheran Confession.
