This past week our son Soren had to complete a writing assignment for school about a Christmas tradition that our family has that he hopes to continue with his children. Soren chose to write about our tradition of traveling to visit family on Christmas Day. Despite the fact that it literally takes us an entire day to fly from Philly to Denver, and then fly from Denver to Spokane (Washington), and then drive a couple hours into the Northern Idaho mountains to get to my parents house, Soren almost never complains. He loves going to his grandparents house that much. Now, traveling to my parents house always includes waking up at a shockingly early hour, like 3 am early. I love waking Soren up to go to Idaho because when I first stir him he doesn’t remember why I’m waking him up. So, he sort of squirms around in his half-comatose state until I tell him the good news: it’s time to go to Grammie’s house. As soon as he hears it, he’s up! He awakens to the good news. We’re going to Idaho, he’s awake, and in full go mode!

Isaiah 52 pictures God waking his sleeping people up to good news. God is speaking to his people who were exiled in Babylon around 587 BC – almost 600 years before the coming of Christ and over 2,500 years ago. Why were they exiled in Babylon rather than at home in the land God promised them? God’s people had become unfaithful to Him. As just discipline, God brought the powerful Babylonian empire to conquer his people and drag the survivors off to exile in Babylon. It was a hopeless situation of their own creation. But in our passage, the Lord speaks good news to his exiled people about a victory that is coming and is as good as done. The Lord is going to bring down the pompous might of the Babylonians and bring his people back to the land of promise. Like me waking Soren up to the good news that we are going to Idaho, the Lord speaks good news to his people and commands them to wake up and respond to it. Listen to the wake up calls leading up to our passage. Isaiah 51:9 – “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD…” Isaiah 51:17 – “Wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem…” Isaiah 52:1 – “Awake, awake, put on strength, O Zion…” In the opening to our passage, the Lord tells his exiled people the good news he wants them to awaken to. Isaiah 52:7 – How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

I love the way Ray Ortlund applies this wake up call to us. “Sometimes we feel like telling God to wake up. But we are the ones who fall asleep, and it’s high time for us to come alive to the gospel. Isaiah’s tone in this passage is urgency…Isaiah is urging us: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). No more dreamy, drifting, halfway Christianity! The life of pilgrimage has begun.” Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our God has won the victory over the eternal exile we deserve and he has brought us home as his adopted children. The Christian life, what Isaiah invites us into, and what our hearts truly long for is a progressive, joyful awakening to the good news, rather than sleepy, halfway Christianity. And that brings us to the big idea of our passage: Wake up to the good news! Wake up to the good news. Ok, how do we do that? Many of us feel like we’ve tried this before, and run out of steam. We’ve settled for halfway Christianity, but God isn’t done waking us up to the good news. Our passage will show us three ways he’s waking us up: 1. Sing for joy (Verses 8-9) 2. Go tell it on the mountain (Verses 7, 10) 3. Depart from Babylon (Verses 10-12).

SING FOR JOY (Verses 8-9)

Our passage opens with a lone messenger running from the battlefront, emerging on the mountains near the city, and announcing a great victory. The image reminds me of the legendary origins of the modern marathon race. Legend has it that after the Greeks won an improbable military victory over the Persians, a Greek messenger named Pheidippides was dispatched to run the twenty-five miles from the battle in Marathon to the Acropolis in Athens to announce the great victory. That’s the image that opens our passage in verse 7. A lone messenger brings the wonderful news that the Lord has returned to Zion, he’s won a great victory over the Babylonians, and His people are returning home with Him in peace. The victory hasn’t actually happened for the exiles yet, but God has announced the good news that’s coming and commanded them to wake up to it.

How do they wake up to it? Isaiah 52:8a – The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy…They wake up to the good news by singing together for joy. The watchmen were the men standing on the city wall, the first to hear the messenger’s wonderful news that their God reigns. How do the watchmen awaken to it? They lift up their voices, so it’s loud. They sing together, so it’s a corporate affair. And they sing for joy. They wake up to the good news by singing together for joy! That’s the first step in waking up to the good news and it’s the step that never ceases. Not only do the watchmen lift up their voices, but they command the rest of God’s sinful and suffering people to do the same. Isaiah 52:9a – Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem… Yes, when God wins a great victory, even the waste places, the sinful, suffering and depressed, sing for joy.

Why do they sing for joy? Well, listen to what is coming. Isaiah 52:8 – The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice; together they sing for joy for eye to eye they see the return of the LORD to Zion. They sing for joy because the Lord is returning to Zion. Why else do they Isaiah 52:9 – Break forth together into singing, you waste places of Jerusalem for the LORD has comforted his people; he has redeemed Jerusalem. They sing for joy because the Lord will comfort and redeem his people. In the Bible, the word “redeem” typically means to deliver from slavery. The Lord is promising to deliver his people from slavery in Babylon, just like he delivered their forefathers from slavery in Egypt so many centuries before. He’s promising to wipe away the tears they’ve cried and himself be their comfort. That’s why they’re singing for joy.

Now, I need to tell you something. This didn’t all actually happen in Israel’s history. Yes, the Lord did destroy the Babylonians. Yes, the Lord did bring his people back from captivity to Jerusalem. But the Lord didn’t return to Zion right away. In fact, back in Zion, God’s people waited for Him through more sins, trials and tribulations until one night. They waited until one night when the Lord returned to Zion in a most unexpected way. The Lord God himself took on flesh and was born to the virgin. And the baby, the Lord, won a victory far greater than defeating Babylon. The Lord lived a sinless life in our place to defeat our sin. The Lord died an atoning death in our place to conquer our judgment. The Lord rose on the third day to secure our victory over the grave and hell. The gospel is the good news that the Lord Jesus Christ returned to Zion and through his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension he has comforted and redeemed all who trust in Him from eternal exile and everlasting death.

The good news has happened, Citylight Church. Now wake up to the good news by singing for joy. “Sing!” Is the most common command in the Bible because singing is not a personality type. The Bible assumes that we sing. It’s the way that we wake up and stay awake to the good news. How should we sing? Remember the watchmen?
Lift up your voice – it should be loud even if you’re bad.
“Together they sing for joy.” It should be done together. Sing loud enough to sustain each other’s faith.
Break forth into singing – sing in response to the wonderful news, not on the basis of how you feel. Sing for the sake of your joy.
Sing you waste places – Sing your way through your trials because they can only last a lifetime. Be, as Paul Tripp says, sad celebrants.

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN (Verse 7, 10)

The second way that we wake up and stay awake to the good news is: go tell it on the mountain. I mentioned earlier that our passage opens with the image of a lone messenger carrying good news of a great victory. He’s like Pheidippides who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver the great news. Another image that comes to mind when I read this opening verse about the messenger is the NFL draft. It’s ok if you’re not into football. I wasn’t either before I moved here and I have never sat through the NFL draft. However, I love to watch the videos of the guys who get picked really late in the draft. For days they sit in suspense wondering if their dream of playing in the NFL is going to come true and then finally they get the call. The coach of their future team tells them they’re going to play in the NFL and be a Philadelphia Eagle. Getting to be the one who makes that call and delivers that news has got to be one of the best parts of being an NFL coach. Who wouldn’t want to be that guy?!

Friends, according to the New Testament, every follower of Jesus has the privilege of being Pheidippides, being the NFL coach, being the messenger whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains because they bring good news of happiness. Every follower of Jesus gets to go tell it on the mountain, to all nations, that Jesus Christ is born. Let me show you our privilege. In the Gospel of Matthew, after the Lord Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected, but before he ascended, he had one final meeting with his disciples. Interestingly, it was up on a mountain. Matthew 28:16-20 – Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Great Commission, which is our commission, is to go tell it on the mountain for all nations to hear. Romans 10:13-15 – For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” Friends – all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved, but they can’t be saved without hearing the wonderful news and they won’t hear the wonderful news unless you go tell it on the mountain. The Christmas carol Go Tell It On The Mountain is an old negro spiritual that was passed down from one generation to another through oral tradition. The song spread far and wide as one generation sang it to the next. In the same way, the gospel message spreads far and wide as you take your dignified places as the messenger whose feet are beautiful because they go and tell it on the mountain to the very ends of the earth that Jesus Christ is born, crucified, resurrected, reigning, and saving all who receive and rest in Him alone for salvation.

Friends, there is a world out there that is spiritually asleep and you have the privilege of going and telling it on the mountain so that they can wake up to the good news as well. And I love the image of beautiful feet on the mountain. Do you notice who thinks the messenger’s feet are beautiful? It’s the Lord. If you saw when Soren and Sage took their first steps you might have looked at them and thought that they were clunky. Andrea and I thought they were beautiful. When you take even the clunkiest steps toward telling it on the mountain, our God looks at that and says, “How beautiful!” Pressure is off. You’re simply telling wonderful news and God says that it’s beautiful. Practically, Christmas Eve represents a wonderful opportunity to go tell it on the mountain. Christmas Eve is one of the most wonderful opportunities that we have in this season to invite non-Christians to hear the wonderful message of salvation. Who will you invite? Who will you bring with you? Wake up and stay awake to the good news first by singing for joy and second by going to tell it on the mountain. Transition: Now, if you’re like me, you may not see the third way to wake up to the good news coming, but we can’t joyfully wake up to the good news without it.

DEPART FROM BABYLON (Verses 11-12)

The Lord was freeing his people from exile and calling his people back to Jerusalem, back to the temple, back to worship, and back to being his people in the world. And to do that, they had to leave Babylon behind and, not only that, they had to leave the stains and ways of Babylon behind as well. Isaiah 52:11 – Depart, depart, go out from there; touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves, you who bear the vessels of the LORD.

To wake up to the good news, we too have to depart from Babylon. By the time we arrive in the New Testament, Babylon is long gone as a superpower. And yet, Babylon is mentioned quite a bit in the New Testament as a symbol for worldliness. To depart from Babylon is to depart from worldliness. 1 John 2:15-16 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. I love the way that Ray Ortlund describes departing from Babylon: “God is not calling for our social withdrawal and isolation but for our spiritual distinction (1 Corinthians 5:9-13).” God is calling us to be in the world but not of the world. As the Apostle Peter writes to Christians, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light…11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:9, 11-12). We wake up to the good news and spread the good news through our holiness. Depart from Babylon.

How do you need to depart from Babylon, from worldliness, from every unclean thing so that you can bear the holy message to your neighbors and the nations? What sins keep you from waking up to the good news and keep you from bearing the holy message? Whatever it is, wake up the good news by departing from it, leaving it behind, and embracing your pilgrimage as elect exiles. Whatever it may cost you to depart from Babylon. Don’t be afraid. Isaiah 52:12 – For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. Don’t be afraid to depart from Babylon, from worldly ways, and from specific sins. Don’t run away terrified, which is what it means to go in haste. The Lord is your leader and your rear guard. Nothing will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

CONCLUSION

We have more in common with the people in exile than we may think. The Lord has already returned, but he has not yet come again. We’re still on the journey. We haven’t arrived in the celestial Idaho just yet. But the day is coming and coming soon! Christ has been born. Christ has lived. Christ has died. Christ is coming again. Wake up to the good news and leave behind halfway Christianity.