December 4, 2025 - Pure Praise

Pure Praise

By: Geoff Posegate

Thursday, December 4, 2025

For to us a child is born,

    to us a son is given,

    and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

I first heard the words of Isaiah 9:1-7 in a performance of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah.”  I was a child at the time.  Since then, I’ve been a part of any number of studies and classes dissecting these verses and promoting multiple theories about them.  Some say the words went to parchment before or during the fall of Jerusalem.  Others believe they emerged during the subsequent exile of many of the residents of Judah, or even after that.  There are those who say this poetry is about the specific continuation of the lineage of Israel’s great King David, while others say this section is a prophecy about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth specifically.  Regardless of how I’ve seen it picked apart in six decades, I still look at the words and I hear Handel’s grand musical proclamation from 1741.

Beyond the contextual details, I believe these words evoke praise.  (Personally, I think this was Handel’s aim.)   Praise is about God; who God is and what God does.  Praise is not about how we benefit from God.  That’s thanksgiving, and it has its place.  Praise is purely an explosion of celebration of God for God’s own sake.   Praise is being captured by the One who is God-with-us (made real in Bethlehem’s stable) and being almost breathless in the presence of the One who continually makes all things new.

In Isaiah 9:1-7, I see a seven-fold template of praise.  Often, I use this flow; lingering for a bit on each element:

1. WONDERFUL:    Wonders happen in the presence of God in Christ Jesus.
2. COUNSELOR:  Wisdom resides in and proceeds from the heart of God.
3. MIGHTY:  God is a power that will not wane.
4. GOD:  God is the one whose very name is beyond the capacity of any human language to contain.
5. EVERYLASTING:  God cannot be bound even by the constraints of time.
6. FATHER:  God is beyond the very most loving parent we can imagine.
7. PRINCE OF PEACE:   God in Christ is the Lord of existence as it should be:  loving God and loving each other as God has loved us.

Try this for each of the remaining days of Advent.  Spend 3-5 minutes a day using the Isaiah 9:1-7 template.  Linger in praise of the One who has come into our midst in Bethlehem’s manger.

Please, Lord, join me on the road, enter into my closed room, and take my foolishness away. Open my mind and heart to the great mystery of your active presence in my life, and give me the courage to help others discover your presence in their lives. Amen. Henri Nouwen