A Light In The Darkness

INTRODUCTION

The passage just read is probably one of my favorite Christmas passages from one of my favorite books of the Bible. In fact, it is one of the reasons Isaiah has sometimes been called the “fifth gospel”, because between this, 7:14, 11:1-9, and chapter 53, we have an almost complete account of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and the promise of his eternal kingdom. But what many people don’t know is that this was written at one of the darkest points in Israel’s history.

A new and ruthless power, called Assyria, was on the rise in the North. It had already annexed Zebulun, Naphtali, and Galilee and the prophet Isaiah had been told by God that this was only a foretaste of what was to come.(1) After centuries of shifting between obedience and disobedience, justice and oppression, faithful service and faithless idolatry, judgment would soon be visited on the Northern ten tribes of Israel and they would be completely destroyed, with only a remnant remaining that would be carted off to far-flung places in the empire, never to be heard from again.

But despite Isaiah’s warnings, the people would not listen. They stumbled around in the dark like blind people, with no hope of finding God without his help. In fact, they would become so desperate that they would seek out mediums and people who claimed they could raise and speak to the dead, for answers; but they wouldn’t turn to their own God for help. We can see some parallels to our culture today.

We are living in an increasingly secularized culture where many people have either been burned by their experiences with people who claimed to know God, or who rejected the idea of God because they were never given a good reason to believe in Him, or because they felt God demanded more than they could give, or more and more, people who weren’t even raised with an idea of God to reject. But I’ve noticed, that even among my friends and family who have walked away from God, they are still searching for *something*… a deeper truth they can’t find, a reason for why things the way they are, for why they are even here, and a hope for the future. Even people who have never seen the light instinctively long for it, even if they can’t exactly define what they are looking for.

Often, in confusion and darkness, they reach out for whatever they can grasp. There’s a reason spiritualist philosophies, New Age books, and even goofy ghost-hunting shows are so popular, even as organized religion wanes in relevance and importance in the cultural sphere. Our society may think it is becoming more rational and has less need for spiritual truths and concepts, but it’s deluding itself. The truth and light of the gospel is just as relevant as it’s ever been.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

But the beautiful thing about the God we serve is that he isn’t content to contain darkness, to just keep it at bay a little while. No, he pierces the heart of it. It reminds me of the times I’ve gone camping. I love the outdoors and one of my favorite ways to recharge is to head into the mountains or woods and just enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. But, oddly enough, one of my favorite moments is that moment just before dawn, when the air is cold and still, and the sky is so black that you can’t see barely a foot in front of your face. But soon enough, the dawn breaks and the world is transformed. The shadows retreat and all the monsters your imagination could conjure up lurking in the shadows retreat with them.

In Isaiah 9, we find a promise that God would pierce the darkness which had covered the land and the people; and this is later fulfilled by Jesus in Mat. 4:15-16, when he begins his ministry in the same “Galilee of the Gentiles” which the Assyrians had first invaded over 700 years before. What better place to declare freedom for the captives than the very spot where they were first enslaved?

This freedom came from an anointed king, but not the type of king anyone expected. After all, when you think of a good king or a strong leader, who do you think of? It’s natural to think of someone who is strong and who can project their strength through force if necessary. That’s how the ancients thought. When the Israelites begged Samuel for a king like those of their neighbors, despite Samuel’s warnings that kings bring oppression and suffering on their people,(2) the type of ideal king they were hoping for were exactly the types of kings the Assyrians and the Egyptians tried to be. In fact, if you go to Egypt or the Ancient Near East today, you can still see reliefs of Egyptian Pharaoh's etched into their tombs, depicting glorious victories, even for battles that we know they lost! And the Assyrians, they became masters in the art of terror, known for razing whole cities and impaling anyone who opposed them on spikes as they conquered one territory after another.