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My goodness, it's so hit or miss when it comes to sermon writing. Sometimes, the theme jumps right out and three points line up at the door, waiting to grace your sermon with clarity, insight and passion. Other times, I can barely figure the theme of my message, much less figure out a rhetorical way to communicate it.

I'm preaching on Isaiah 36 and 37. The first problem is obvious: the text is too big. But, the kids are doing a dramatic rendition of it as part of the Christmas program. It's the story of the Assyrians being annihilated at the aqueduct by the gate to Jerusalem after having intimidated the Israelites by terrorizing them in their own Hebraic tongue. King Hezekiah demands with five imperatives that God observe the affront to Israel which is actually an afront to Yahweh's majesty. God intervenes for the sake of his covenant people and for the sake of his own name and destroys 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. Sennacherib goes home and is killed by his own son.

After much pondering, I came to the conclusion that the point of this passage is about seeing the cosmic significance of an affront to God's people. God intervenes only after Hezekiah pleads with God in God's language, so to speak--the language of God's honor. What's at stake? In not so many words, the king of Assyria has made himself out to be a minor diety, a king so strong that no king and no gods can stand up to him. The arrogance and implied self-pronouncements of this king leave God no alternative but to cut him down to size. To not do so would be to allow the world to see God's covenant children annihilated at the hand of an ego maniac.

As I thought about this passage and how to relate it to our day, I came to realize that the point of connection has to do seeing our battles against the enemy from the cosmic perspective of Hezekiah. But the big question: who or what is our enemy? Satan? Evil? Sin? Doubt?