Some Scripture passages come with their own soundtrack. The moment I opened Isaiah, I wasn’t sitting at my kitchen island anymore. I was sitting in the middle of Handel’s Messiah. Before I had even finished reading the first few verses, For Unto Us a Child Is Born was already filling my head. It is impossible for me to read Isaiah 9 without hearing that joyful explosion of voices announcing, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Handel somehow captures what words alone struggle to express, that heaven simply cannot contain its excitement.
Then, as if one musical work wasn’t enough, another one wandered into the room. “Tradition!” Only my brain would invite Tevye to interrupt Handel. At first it made me laugh, but the more I prayed, the more I realized they belong in the same conversation. Handel celebrates the promise. Tevye fights to preserve the tradition. Both understand that traditions shape people. They remind us who we are. They root us in something larger than ourselves. Yet every tradition eventually faces the same danger. It can become so familiar that we stop asking why it exists in the first place.
That thought stayed with me as I imagined Mary and Joseph walking into the Temple carrying Jesus. It was a beautiful ritual that had been repeated for generations. Families arrived. Priests offered blessings. Sacrifices were made. Parents smiled. Babies cried. Sandals shuffled across stone floors. It was joyful. It was sacred. It was… normal. And therein lies the irony. Isaiah’s prophecy had just walked through the front doors of the Temple. Most people probably never noticed.
As I continued praying, however, I realized I’ve spent most of my life reading Isaiah backwards. I’ve always assumed these four names were simply titles describing Jesus. Beautiful titles, yes, but titles nonetheless. Then it suddenly struck me. What if Isaiah wasn’t giving us four names to admire? What if he was revealing the four deepest questions every human being spends their entire life trying to answer? Suddenly Isaiah wasn’t talking about ancient Israel anymore. He was talking about me.
The first question is one our world asks every single day. Who can I trust?
We have never lived in a time with more information. Every podcast has an expert. Every social media feed has a guru. Every algorithm is convinced it knows what will make us happier, healthier, wealthier, more productive, more attractive, and somehow capable of making sourdough bread while training for a marathon before breakfast. Artificial intelligence can summarize entire books in seconds. Our phones know where we’ve been, what we’ve purchased, and probably what we’re craving for lunch.
And yet anxiety continues climbing. Division keeps growing. Families keep fracturing. Maybe information was never the same thing as wisdom. One of my favorite moments in Ted Lasso is when Ted quotes Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” It’s such a simple line, yet it feels almost revolutionary today. Somewhere along the way we became experts at having opinions and beginners at listening. Isaiah doesn’t promise another expert. He promises a Wonderful Counselor—not One who simply knows more facts, but One who knows the human heart. The Counselor doesn’t merely answer our questions. He asks the ones we’ve been avoiding.
Then comes the second question. Who’s really in control?
Hollywood has spent decades convincing us that whoever possesses the greatest power eventually saves the day. Marvel gives us superheroes. Star Wars gives us the Force. The Wizard of Oz gives us smoke, fire, giant floating heads, and a booming voice behind a curtain. We love the illusion that bigger, louder, stronger, and more powerful must also mean better. Isaiah quietly smiles. Then points to a baby. Not a warrior. Not an emperor. Not a celebrity. Not even someone capable of holding up His own head. Apparently heaven’s definition of power bears very little resemblance to ours.
Real strength doesn’t need to intimidate. Real strength serves. Real strength kneels. Real strength forgives. Real strength absorbs hatred instead of multiplying it. The older I get, the more I realize the strongest people in my life are rarely the loudest. They’re the ones who quietly keep showing up. The nurse working another twelve-hour shift. The teacher patiently encouraging a struggling student. The caregiver sitting beside someone who no longer remembers their name. That’s not weakness. That’s mighty.
Then Isaiah asks an even deeper question. Who stays?
I don’t think our greatest problem is loneliness. I think we live in the age of replacement. When something breaks, we replace it. When a phone slows down, we upgrade it. When a job becomes difficult, we look elsewhere. When a relationship disappoints us, we’re tempted to start over. When someone disagrees with us online, we unfollow them. Even people have become frighteningly disposable.
Underneath all of that is a question most of us learned to ask long before we could even put words to it. Will someone still love me when I disappoint them? Will someone still choose me when I’m no longer useful? Will someone still stay when life becomes inconvenient? Maybe that’s why This Is Us made so many people cry. It wasn’t simply because the stories were sad. It was because beneath every storyline was one stubborn hope: that love might actually last. Isaiah doesn’t answer that longing with an idea. He answers it with Presence. Everlasting Father. The One who doesn’t leave. The One who isn’t looking for the next, newer, shinier version of me. The One who remains.
Finally comes the question beneath every other question. Will everything ever be okay?
I think we’ve answered that one incorrectly for years. We spend our lives chasing balance. Work-life balance. Financial balance. Emotional balance. Social balance. Spiritual balance. As if life were one giant circus act where the goal is simply to keep all the plates spinning without dropping one. Isaiah never promises balance. He promises shalom. Wholeness. There is a difference. Balance says, “Try harder.” Shalom says, “Let Me heal what has been broken.”
It reminds me of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where shattered pottery isn’t discarded but lovingly repaired with veins of gold. The cracks aren’t hidden because they have become part of the beauty. Maybe peace isn’t the absence of brokenness. Maybe peace is discovering that God can make something more beautiful because it was broken, not despite it.
By now Handel’s chorus had returned to my imagination, but I wasn’t hearing it the same way anymore. Those names no longer sounded like lyrics soaring through a concert hall. They sounded like the deepest longings of every person I’ve ever met. Every political campaign promises some version of them. Every advertisement quietly sells them. Every self-help book hints at them. Every love story longs for them. Every parent hopes for them. Every child asks for them. Who can I trust? Who’s really in control? Who will stay? Will everything ever be okay? Then it hit me. Maybe Isaiah wasn’t writing four titles for Jesus. Maybe he was exposing four empty spaces inside every human heart.
We’ve spent centuries trying to fill them with success, achievement, wealth, relationships, popularity, politics, certainty, religion, and even ourselves. We keep expecting created things to carry the weight of questions only the Creator can answer. Perhaps that’s why some people in the Temple missed Him. They were expecting answers. God sent a Person. And perhaps that’s why I miss Him, too.
Because Christ rarely arrives looking like the solution I’ve imagined. He usually enters quietly through the side door of my life disguised as an interruption, a difficult conversation that becomes wisdom, a season of weakness that becomes strength, a friend who refuses to leave, or a wound that slowly becomes whole. Maybe Handel understood something I hadn’t until today. He wasn’t composing music about four beautiful names. He was writing the soundtrack for the moment humanity’s oldest questions finally met their Answer.
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