Intro: Light. We have a hard time even describing what it’s made out of, but we sure do depend on it.
We know it’s very fast - 186,282 miles per second.
We know that it’s important to our emotional and physical health. Sunshine is a source of vitamin D, and areas where the sun doesn’t shine much are areas where people are depressed. Alaska has the 2nd highest suicide rate in the nation.
We know we need light to see. So, we come up with all kinds of ways to generate it in places where we need it. We even use it to decorate and to entertain.
Our planet depends on light for energy. Plants use it to create sugar and to generate oxygen. We have learned how to harness the sun for electricity.
Light, in a concentrated form, is powerful enough to burn through steel instantly, or on a sunny day with a magnifying glass, enough to cook some angry fire ants!
As it turns out, light is also an indispensable element of the Christmas story. Christmas is filled with the presence and significance of light, and this December we’re going to look at the light, especially through the glow of one Bible verse…
Isaiah 9:2
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
Just like any other Sunday, everyone comes inside these doors with their own story. I want this message today to speak especially to people who are feeling the gloom. Holidays bring that for a lot of people. Maybe this is the first Christmas you’ll be facing without a loved one. Maybe there’s a bad memory in the past that happened around Christmas and that’s what comes to mind as you think about it.
Maybe you’re just overwhelmed with the hyper-materialism and the different way that people drive starting the day after Thanksgiving. It might be that having the day feel like it’s over because it’s dark at 4:30 is getting to you. I just know that gloominess is a reality for a lot of people right about now. I hope to find some help with that from God’s word this morning.
Let’s get some background here by starting at the beginning. You know, when light first started…
Genesis 1:1-5 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
To speak about and understand the whole subject of light, we need this background. You notice Who invented light and darkness, night and day? God calls the light “day,” and the darkness “night.” When it comes to creation, the very first order of business is light. First, there was formlessness, emptiness, and darkness. Light came to be because God told it to. Not only did it “be,” (v3), but also it was good (v4) and as He created it, God made a definite distinction between light and darkness. That’s the very first part of creating that God did. It seems now like there are a lot of people who are working hard to blur the lines between light and darkness. I wonder if they realize that they’re trying to figuratively undo the very first thing that God did in creation. He separated light from darkness.
The difference between light and darkness is one of the ways that Scripture helps us understand what is good and evil.
That way of speaking is so common that most any person in any culture can appreciate it. Dark magic, the dark arts, the Dark Side, dark times, being “in the dark,” or in a dark mood - these are things we learn about very early in life. We understand them to be the opposite of good things - things that have to do with being in the light.
And somehow, we find that light and all that is good about it finds its source in God - so much so that at the end of the story which we’re still waiting for, when creation gets an extreme makeover, there’s no longer a sun or moon. God Himself is the literal source of light in Heaven. (Rev 21:23)
But right now, there’s gloom, isn’t there? This is the perfect time of year to point to it. George HW Bush died Friday night, so flags were being lowered to ½-mast yesterday. Then, I stood at a graveside yesterday. It was windy, but wind is especially strong in cemeteries. Then, the temperature was just above freezing, the sky was pale gray…and it was raining. If I were an artist, and wanting to paint “gloomy,” that’s how it would look; no “happy trees.” Gray. Cold. Dimly lit. Sad.
Gloomy. I don’t read in Genesis 1 about the day that God created “gloomy.” Those days of creation began with the creation of light - darkness and light were separated from each other, and God invented day and night. But “gloomy,” I don’t remember that being in there. Still, gloomy is here, isn’t it? There’s plenty of gloomy. In fact, starting in Genesis 3, darkness comes to creation in a way that is still waiting to be changed.
So God launches His plan to take away the gloom. He’ll bring light back to the scene. He’ll bring light to the world through a chosen nation, Israel.
When you’re surrounded with light, other sources of light don’t seem so significant.
You can’t see the stars in the daytime, because the sky is illuminated. But once it starts to get dark, you can begin to see them - billions of sources of incredible light, far beyond our ability to even imagine. But you can’t appreciate them until you experience darkness. In fact, the best way to see the stars is to go away from the cities to where it’s completely dark.
Some of the darkness that describes Israel is recorded because it helps us all to see just how bright a light Jesus would prove to be. The book of the prophet Isaiah spells it out. The story of their darkness goes way back…just like ours. Chapter 59 describes their dark conditions:
2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
3 - blood-stained hands; lies; wicked words
4 - no justice; no integrity; lies; evil plans
6 - evil deeds; violence
7 - rush to sin; swift to kill the innocent; evil plans; violent acts
8 - don’t know the way of peace; no justice
13 - rebellion; treachery; turning backs on God; revolt; oppression; lies
In v9, Isaiah summarizes
9 …We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.
God’s chosen people hadn’t just turned their backs on Him; they had turned and run the other way. About 20 years earlier, the 10 northern tribes of Israel had been conquered and carried away by the Assyrians. The remaining 2 tribes were headed the same direction. It was over 100 yrs away, but the gloominess in Judah was going get much worse.
Not only would their rebellion grow, but the Babylonian empire would grow and eventually attack and exile them. It would include dark stories of starvation and death and destruction. History would include empires that rose and fell - the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans - all of them rolling over what was left of Israel, the once great nation.
People walking in darkness. People living in the land of deep darkness - as if the Grim Reaper rose up and his shadow hung over them. Gloom.
But despite such gloom, through all of it, God was working His plan. Even though Israel didn’t recognize it, God was using them to prepare the way for something new. That’s what we’re looking at today, in Isaiah 9…
Isaiah 9:1-7 Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. 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. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
God’s answer to dispel the worst gloom is to send the greatest Light! There will be no more gloom…a great light has dawned! A Child will be born to us, a son, given to us. His kingdom will be established forever. That’s why Christmas is a time to celebrate. It’s a reminder that a Great Light was sent by God to break up the gloom.
Wouldn’t it be great if at Christmastime we just celebrated the end of all gloom? I’m afraid that we sometimes get the impression that this whole story is about us, when in fact it’s about God. He has chosen to include us in it, but we’re not the ones who decide how it will all come down. That’s not how it worked for Israel. It would happen in God’s timing, and it would happen on God’s terms.
700 years would pass before Jesus was born. 3 empires would rise and fall. A 4th would come to power and Israel would still be oppressed. In fact, much of Isaiah’s prophecy still hasn’t been fulfilled completely and won’t be until Jesus returns to take us home. And Israel became impatient. They longed for the promised One. This Christmas, as you hear again the words to the carol, “O Come, O Come, Immanuel!” think about a captive nation, waiting for God’s promise of a great light.
Do you ever become impatient?
Do you ever struggle with the way that God isn’t responding like you think He should?
Do you ever find yourself saying, “Lord, any time now! Any time You want to open up that job promotion; anytime You want to help me heal from this injury or get me in for that surgery; any time that You want to help make my schedule easier - I’m all set for it!”?
We need to accept the fact that God works on His schedule. We don’t see the big picture, but the One Who sees a thousand years as a day and a day as a thousand years isn’t worried about time.
Paul wrote to the Galatians
Galatians 4:4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
If you look at what was going on in history, sure enough, you can see that it was just the right time. Where the world was with language, and religion, and politics, and travel was the perfect setting for the Church to begin and spread. The great light came in God’s timing.
Let me encourage you this morning - have this time of year be a time to pause and surrender to God’s timing. God sent Jesus at just the right time. We wouldn’t have planned it the way He did, but as we look into it, it was just the right time. We wouldn’t have wanted Him to do anything differently.
In the same way, we need to learn to trust God’s perfect timing with our situations. He knows what’s going on. We wouldn’t want Him to do anything different than what’s best, would we?
Psalm 37:5-7 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Trust His timing. He loves you.
Israel also needed to learn that God was sending a great light on God’s terms.
The great light was going to make a quiet and simple entrance. That’s not what they were expecting. The great light wasn’t going to lead a political revolt that would overthrow their enemies. He was going to teach them to love their enemies and to overcome evil with good. He wouldn’t come to verify their superior holiness. He would come to die for their forgiveness, and not for theirs alone, but for the non-Jews too. Those weren’t the terms Israel was expecting.
Let me encourage you this morning - have this time of year be an opportunity to humble yourself in light of the way God’s plan works. A baby, born in poverty, in an obscure place, under political oppression, without a place to lay His head, who grew up to be rejected by His own people and publicly executed, is our Leader. Life in Him is one of self-denial and acceptance of our own need for mercy and grace. He calls us to take up our cross and follow Him daily, to lay up treasure in Heaven, to serve Him and Him only.
I’m going to shock some of you by saying this. Sometimes, the way my wife does things is different than the way I would do them. Sometimes, we even have spirited discussions about some of those differences, because I occasionally forget that she’s right and I’m wrong! Do you any of you other couples ever have spirited discussions, just because the way you would do something is different than the way your spouse wants to do it? Occasionally, it’s necessary to accept the idea that how we think something should be done may not always be the best way. Marriage has a way of teaching you that!
How, right now, do you find yourself at odds with God’s terms? What about God’s ways are you resenting or fighting against? Think about the situation and learn from these words in Isaiah today. His ways are perfect, regardless of whether we understand them or not. It may well be that God’s plan to remove your gloominess is sitting on the doorstep.
Conclusion:
Ill - We sat alone in a hospital room. It was the day after our 2nd son was born, and it was becoming very apparent that he wouldn’t live but a few days. Carrie was recovering from an emergency C-section. We had the blinds pulled closed, the lights turned off; attempts to shut out the reality of what was going on, but we couldn’t get away from it. We sat there, in the gloom, lonely, broken, and sad. I don’t remember how long that went on, but I can remember that gloom like it was yesterday. Suddenly, Milt and Betty Sills, Carrie’s foster parents who lived a few hours away, knocked and came in. They looked at the room, at our faces, and without asking, they turned on the lights. One of them right away went over to the window and opened the blinds. Powerful rays of July sunlight came pouring in. Our eyes had to squint, because we had so adjusted them to the gloom. And the lonely quietness was broken up by their familiar voices, and the familiar love they conveyed. It was like pulling the plug on a tub of dirty bathwater. The gloom slipped away, and the atmosphere was refilled with breathable light and love. For the first time since the dark cloud had overshadowed us, we regained a sense of hope to help us through. What changed? Someone showed up and added light and love to the situation.
This is what God did for all of us, times a billion!
Just like God spoke light into the darkness at creation, God sent a great light into the gloom of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. This time of year we’re looking at it more carefully - once again, in awe and wonder of a Great Light that was sent to break up the gloom and distress that darkness has brought into our world.
You can have that begin in your life today. In a moment, we’re going to encourage you to make the choice to walk in that Light. But right now, we’re at the point in our time of worship that really has brought us together today. We’re going to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together.
