January 30, 2005 Isaiah 9:1-4
1 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 Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan -- 2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. 3 You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. 4 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.
As the winter time plods along I tend to get tired of it getting dark at about five or six o’clock in the evening. It’s just hard to get much accomplished or get out and enjoy life when it is constantly cold and dark out. So when we get a good snowfall it’s kind of nice - at least to me. I like it because it seems to brighten things up - you look out the window and have to squint because of the sun coming off the ground. Even at night there is a glare that shines in your windows.
God didn’t design this world to be dark and dreary, cold and frigid. Yet ever since the fall, or at least the flood, we’ve had to endure these seasons for endless generations. Much worse than the physical darkness that we have to live in, is the spiritual darkness. Isaiah describes this by saying that “The people walking in darkness . . . . living in the land of the shadow of death.” That sounds familiar to Psalm 23, which we hear at funerals - the valley of the shadow of death. When a shadow hits you, you realize that the actual object isn’t far behind. At every funeral the shadow hits us - reminds us - that we are all doomed to die. It brings out the darkness of a world drenched in sin - living in a spiritual darkness. Most of the people we live with don’t see that there is a heaven or a hell, don’t think about angels and demons, and don’t know about a holy God who lives in the heavens and on the earth - who is watching their every move - waiting to judge them on the Final Day. They’re blind - living in darkness. It’s like Jesus said in John 3:19, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
I’m afraid that our eyes have adjusted to this darkness as well. Like modern day Helen Kellers, we have adjusted to living in this world much like the unbelievers. We live like blind people, saving our money for the next vacation, planning out our next date, cheering on our favorite teams, acting as if we never really saw God or recognized he was there. Our friends listen to the way we talk and act and don’t see any light in us at all. Oh, sure, we’ll recognize Him and see Him in the things we want to see - maybe in the nice car He gives us or during the surgery we have to get through - then we’ll look to Him. But otherwise, we tend to close our eyes to this whole spiritual world and live like the blind. I might call it selective sight. I’ll look at the passage that tells me to love my neighbor, but I’ll pretend that my neighbor doesn’t include my wife or kids, but only my friends. I’ll read the passage that says “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” but I’ll forget about it when I have an opportunity to watch a movie or sleep in. We have adapted to the eyesight of the world around us, learning to live in the darkness, and all the while claiming to have perfect sight. It’s shameful.
Instead of living like Helen Keller and showing us how to live IN the darkness, God wants us to live in the LIGHT. The “light” is a common term used throughout Isaiah. It was clearly explained by Jesus when He said - John 8:12 "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." When we are brought to the light of Jesus, God uses our spiritual eyes of faith to enjoy another complete sense that unbelievers can’t enjoy. It’s as if there’s another whole dimension out there - a whole different life that God wants us to see and LIVE in. It’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t seen the Light. Isaiah describes what it’s like to live in the Light. When you hear him speak of these advantages, I want you to ask yourself if you’ve experienced them. If you have, it will answer the question -
Have You Seen the Light?
I. He brings honor from humility
The first effect of living in the light is described in Isaiah 9:1-2. In it Isaiah says, In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan -- 2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. The change that God talks about goes from being humbled to honored. He describes it through the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. These were two small provinces on the northern end of Israel, right on the west side of the sea of Galilee. In a physical and a spiritual sense - they didn’t have much to be proud of. Within or near one of their provinces the evil King Jeroboam set up a golden calf that the Northern Kingdom could flock to in order to “worship god.” This region also contained many “Samaritans,” that despised half breed of Jews that ended up interbreeding with the Gentiles. On top of that, these regions were at one time conquered by Assyria on several occasions. Once by Tiglath-Pileser in 2nd Kings 15:29 and then again later by Nebuchadnezzar in the Assyrian invasion. During both of these times the army marched right through their province, and they proved to be too weak to do anything. You might compare it to the videos of the Germans who were marching right through the middle of France in World War II. Here they were supposed to have such a strong defense set up and the Germans went right around it and made them look like wimps. Another example might be how some of the Iraqi’s feel with the Americans living on their soil. That’s how Zebulun and Naphtali had been humbled in the past. They felt like an insignificant little part of the world that had nothing to be proud of.
Yet God would change all of that. Isaiah predicted that, “ in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan -- 2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” This very passage was quoted when Jesus decided, right after his temptation of the devil in the desert and the arrest of John, to leave Nazareth and go to visit - of all places - Naphtali and Zebulun - Galilee of the Gentiles. This place scorned by the Jews ended up having God Himself make a special visit to very early in His ministry. It’s one thing to have a king or a celebrity come and visit - but God Himself came and ate, drank, preached, and did miracles among them. Instead of going to Jerusalem first under His public ministry, His first place to visit was “mighty” Zebulun and Naphtali. What an honor and what a privilege it must have been, and Isaiah said just as much. That word for honor comes from the word in Hebrew - cavode - meaning “to be heavy.” In Africa, when you are in the presence of someone great - you are said to feel weighed down - unworthy of such a presence - so much so that you have to take your left hand to lift up your right arm - in order to shake the hand of such a great person. So when Jesus would come to their region, and explain to them His mission - to be the Savior of the world, this Light of salvation would bring honor to this once despised and beaten down people. His arrival would bring them honor for centuries to come - knowing that Jesus came to visit THEM.
You know you’ve seen the Light when you’ve been living in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali - when you’ve had you’re embarrassing moments, your spiritual letdowns, and your past is riddled with failure. You look back at your teenage years, and you may remember those embarrassing things you said, or those filthy things you did, and you say to yourself, “I’ve failed my God.” You may look back to the times that you were supposed to be the protector - the leader of the family, and YOU were the one who allowed the devil to come charging in. You didn’t stand up against sin. You didn’t say no to your child. You didn’t do what you could have done. So you sit there on the northern border, with the rest of the family of God seeing your failures. Embarrassed. Humbled.
But then Jesus comes into your dark and dreary land. He says, “I have come to live and to die for you. I have come to erase your shameful past, and to use my blood to make you look pure and holy in my sight. I did this not just by taking on human flesh, but by actually being bathed in your sins on the cross.” With your baptism He says, “I want you to be my child again - a pure Jew by faith.” When you sit here and hear that message - and you see that salvation is free of charge through faith in Christ - you then see the Light shining on the horizon. You see that God is not going to condemn you because of your past, but that He has forgiven you. When you feel so unworthy for the Savior to become you and shed His blood for you, when you feel so amazed that the Holy Spirit would choose you - the chief of sinners - to be a saint in His sight - then you know you have seen the Light. When you come to church with an attitude that says, “I don’t deserve to be here, ” and when you have a feeling of heaviness and honor just to be in the presence of God and listen to His Word - then you know you’ve seen the Light. Then you know you’ve got it.
II. He brings joy from defeat
The problem with that feeling is that it doesn’t always last, does it? Think about the first time you may have met your spouse or the first time you ran into a celebrity - your heart races faster, your eyes gaze - you really get a special feeling in your stomach. But after time, that feeling of honor, that feeling of awe - it doesn’t always last, does it? When President Bush came to Topeka for the Brown vs. Board opening, it may have been neat for some to be in the presence of their President for that short time. And when John Kerry came through Lawrence and Topeka it also may have felt neat just to see him for a short time. Yet those feelings come and go with the moment, because the candidates and people of fame only stay for a short time. They may promise great things and make you feel like the future is all in their hands, but then you realize they’re just politicians. When you get to know them, you see that they still put their shoes on what foot at a time just like anyone else. The dawn still sets on another day.
When the Light of the World comes, however, things are different. The visit of this King has lasting implications. It isn’t just a fly by night visit on a late night train. Isaiah says, 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. Isaiah says that when the Light comes it is like “Midian’s defeat.” It was an interesting defeat, indeed. If you look back in the history books, Joshua tells us of what happened. Every harvest time a ton of Midianites would come and encamp on Israel’s ground, basically wiping out all of the Israelites’ harvests and leaving them nothing left. So God called Gideon, of the small tribe of Manasseh, to go and fight against them with only three hundred men armed with trumpets, jars, and torches. In that one evening the Israelites routed the Midianites, chasing them all the way back to Beth Barah. (Joshua 6) No longer did they have these oppressors to make them hide in caves and take all of their harvest. In the same way, Isaiah said this Light would not just take the yoke off of their necks - but literally SHATTER that yoke. A yoke was used to put over a cow’s neck as it plowed the fields. That yoke would be removed.
What yoke was he talking about? The Assyrians? The Babylonians? In context, Isaiah is talking about the yoke of darkness - the yoke of death. It’s that burden each and every one us carry - that burden of guilt that we have around our necks. It’s that feeling of grief we feel as we live under the shadow of death. It’s that part of your sinful nature that keeps on dragging you into saying things you shouldn’t be saying. It’s the grief of knowing you aren’t as good of a mother and a wife as you could be. It’s that burden of knowing you could have been a better child and student, but you weren’t. It’s that idea of living under a shadow of death - knowing that some day your heart will stop pounding, the blood in your face and your hands and your feet will cease circulating, and you will in fact be dead. That’s a yoke that none of us can escape - that none of us can take off of our necks. Satan’s got it firmly entrenched on us.
But as in the day of Mideon’s defeat, our modern day Gideon has come to shatter that yoke. His broken glass is His body, which was crushed on the cross. His trumpet is His voice, which calls out, “it is finished.” With those words Jesus says to us, “I’ll take that yoke of guilt off of your neck, and put it on MINE. I’ll take that shadow of death off of you.” His fire is His Holy Spirit - who enters our heart at baptism and chases the devil away by giving us faith and washing our sins away. It assures us that there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Here you see how Jesus has become our Gideon, with His unconventional weapons. In the eyes of the world, a voice, a Word, and a fire are not very powerful things. Yet these words chase out demons. When the sun shines behind us - the shadows of the hills in front of us fall behind the hills. In the same way, with these words of the Son, it’s as if a new Light has shifted the shadow from us onto the cross. These words relieve the fear of death FOREVER. These words assure us that, “because I live, you also will live.” When God uses these weapons, the yoke comes off our neck, and we no longer have that burden of guilt around our necks. We no longer have that fear of death. Gideon has shattered the yoke of the Enemy. God’s wrath is paid for. Satan’s accusations fall on deaf ears. We see the Light of salvation through the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns in our hearts and focuses on the cross and the empty grave. It keeps us humble.
The problem is that we are still in the field, plowing away. We may not have yokes around our necks, but the sun is still beating on us. The devil is still trying to ride us. We’re still tired. We still sin. We still feel like wild oxen in a cruel and selfish world. Our feelings of guilt almost are too great to bear in the presence of His holiness. But in the midst of the shadow of death, those who see the Light have a very strange response indeed. Isaiah says, “Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. . . . You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.” Isaiah says clearly that the response of those in the light is NO MORE GLOOM. Instead, they have an INCREASED JOY and they REJOICE! The strange effect that the Light has on Christians is that it makes them rejoice while living in the shadow of death. Why? Because they know God’s declaration of forgiveness is complete. They know in spite of their guilt - they’re still holy. Think of Paul and Silas, singing hymns while being locked up in the stocks of jail. After the apostles were beaten and whipped, they rejoiced - because they were counted worthy to suffer as Christ did. As Stephen was having huge rocks hurled at his head, he rejoiced in a vision of His Lord and Savior - because he knew he was going to heaven. When we suffer the loss of a loved one, we sing songs of praise to Jesus. Even though we haven’t received the full harvest, we know it is coming. Even though the battle isn’t over, we know that the war is - and the plunder of heaven is coming. Therefore, we rejoice.
How do you know if you’ve seen the Light? When you are sick and start dying, do you still have an underlying happiness because you know you’re going to heaven? Then you’ve seen the Light. When God’s law continues to make you feel guilty, do you in the midst of your sorrow still find reason rejoice in the fact that your sins were already paid for 2,000 years ago? Then you’ve seen the Light. When the powerful of this world tyrannize you with their good looks and order of rank in the world, do you still rejoice in knowing that the King of the world is on your side? You know that you have seen the Light, if you still find reason to rejoice - even when you’re overworked, even as you know you’ve sinned, even if you’re a modern day failure, because you know that your Gideon has already defeated your Enemy. The plunder is yours.
Imagine that you were living in an underground room with only artificial light. Your friends were there, your family was there. There was plenty to do and plenty of “fun,” but there was no sunlight. Without the sunlight, as much fun as things seemed to get, it was still depressing - because you missed the sunlight and the world up above. If someone entered your cave one day and gave you a torch to take a walk through a dark tunnel and promised you there was sunlight up above - but that it was a dangerous and dark path with enemies on the way - which may cause you to prematurely die - would you take it? Or would you stay where you were at?
That’s the best way I can illustrate what Isaiah was saying to us in today’s text. There’s a Light at the end of the tunnel. His name is Jesus Christ. There’s a torch we’ve been given - His name is the Holy Spirit. Jesus gave His life to give us this Torch - to provide us this Path. He promises us eternal life in heaven. He shows us the Light. Either you can stay here in the dark and feel too afraid to walk such a path, or by the Torch you can walk on the Pathway to heaven. By God’s grace, through faith in Jesus - you’re already on the pathway to heaven. If you find yourself feeling gloomy, feeling dark, and wonder if you’ve seen the Light - then remember where to look. Don’t look at the darkness. Don’t look at your feelings. Don’t look at the path. Look at the end of the path - look at the cross - look at the empty tomb - keep on focusing at the Light at the end of the tunnel. With your eyes on Him, you’ll feel honored to be on the Path. With your eyes on Him, you’ll rejoice in the victory that was won - that you are on the right Path. When you look at the Light, you’ll know you’ve seen the Light, and no yoke will be able to hold you back. Amen.
