A Light Will Shine

I wish that more things could simply be true or false, or that the answer to most questions could be either A or B. But that’s not actually how it works a lot of the time. Many things are a mix of true and false , and sometimes the right answer to a question is both A and B. Life requires the ability to hold different ideas in tension.

This is even true of Christmas.

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. That’s how the song goes, right? Christmas is lights and decorations and joyful song and good food and the embrace of family, laughter of children, and sharing of love and faith.

But of course that’s not all it is. For some people Christmas is wondering how to put anything under the tree for their kids when they can’t keep up with the cost of food. Or it’s making plans to spend as much time as possible with that loved one who won’t likely around for the next Christmas. Or it’s deciding how much to bother decorating now that you’re not sharing a home with someone else this season. It’s hoping to finally get into hospital for a long-delayed treatment, or hoping to stay out of hosptial long enough spend the season at home.

That’s also Christmas to some of us, and others that we love. It’s also the reason some counselors wish people a “gentle” Christmas, recognizing that “Merry” isn’t the right word for everyone.

What I’ll try to draw from today’s scripture passage is like this, too. Peace isn’t one thing. And there isn’t a single path to it. Peace is about what’s inside me and what’s going on around me. Peace is about my present circumstances, and what I hope for in the future.

Walking In Darkness

I want to start right into this passage from Isaiah 9. And if you know what it’s like to have faced - or be facing - a season of discouragement, defeat, or despair, then you have a better understanding of the people that Isaiah chapter 9 was originally written to.

They were the people of Jerusalem, in the kindom of Judah. In the glory days of King David and Solomon they had some wealth and status and power and reason to be optimistic about their future as God’s chosen nation. But those days were long gone. Jerusalem was a backwater town, Judah was a small and unimportant nation. A series of terrible kings had left them neck-deep in corruption and idolatry, and their days looked like they could be numbered.

They new this because they had just seen their cousins in the Northern Kingdom of Israel get wiped off the map. The mighty Assyrian Empire’s army came, conquered, deported the survivors, and the ten tribes of Isreal who used to live there were suddenly pretty much gone.

The only reason that the same thing didn’t happen to Judah was that they chose to pay tribute to Assyria, which put everyone under a crippling tax burden. It was painful and humiliating and there was no reason to expect things to get better.

Those were some tough emotional and material struggles to contend with. But these created a spiritual struggle, too. Where was God? Where was the God who promised to bless all the nations through Abraham’s children, who made Israel a special people, a nation of priests? Why was God letting this happen? Had He broken His Covenant promises and given up on them?

Discouragement, defeat, and despair reigned in Jerusalem.

But God hadn’t broken His promise or given up on them. God was still very much in control and was working out a plan would lead to His people’s good and the world’s salvation. God doesn’t do things according to our preferred timing or expectations, but that doesn’t mean He has abandonned us.

One way God let His people know this was by giving a vision and His own words to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was given a glimpse into God’s future, and saw what was coming.

This source of hope was a person who was more than a person. A coming king.

Isaiah had already briefly introduced this figure in chapter 7, when he said: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” (God with us).

But here in chapter 9 Isaiah has much more to say about this future king who will bring light and peace to God’s people.

First of all, there is the place he will identify with. Galilee. This was the area especially devested by the Assyrian army in Isaiah’s time - the place of the greatest destruction and defeat. But Isaiah predicts that God will honour Galilee in a special way when this new king comes.

And what kind of king is He? He is from the line of David, which God promised to maintain on the throne of Isreal.

He is a human, it would seem, for unto us a child is born, to us a son is given.

But he is more than a human, because he will reign over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. He is called Everlasting Father, or “Father of Eternity” because he is eternal and the one from whom eternal things come. That’s not a regular human.

And what is his kingdom like? Besides overflowing with justice and righteousness it is also an expanding kingdom that is becoming more joyful and prosperous. It is free from oppression and a place of permanent peace - with no need for the weapons of war.

Of the greatness of this king’s government and peace there will be no end.

For all this he will rightly be called Mighty God. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, someone with extraordinary wisdom who can accomplish miraculous things. And he will be called the Prince of Peace.

Peace for Israel

It think it’s important to start with what Isaiah’s original audience would have made of this prophecy.

The coming king, this Prince of Peace, that Isaiah describes is the perfect opposite of what the people of Jerusalem were accustomed to. Their kings had been unfaithful and allowed injustice to thrive. Because of them the kingdom was diminished, its people to be impoverished and weak.

This new king would have sounded awfully good. The line of David restored by someone with the wisdom and power to make all these things right? After generations of things going increasingly wrong that would sound great. But what good did that vision do them in that moment, in those depressing circumstances they were living through?

And the answer is hope. Last week was the Sunday of hope and this is the Sunday of peace, but I’m going to cheat a bit and talk about both things, because we often need hope to have peace.

Hope matters, even if it doesn’t change what’s happening to you in that moment. The people of Jerusalem were wondering if everything they thought about themselves was a lie. Maybe God hadn’t rescued them for a reason and raised them up as His people to bless the world. Maybe they were just going to be oppressed, then absorbed, and then forgotten- a footnote in history. And if that was the case why try to be faithful to God? Why try to retain their Hebrew identity?

Isaiah offered hope that it did still matter. That’s God’s plan was still in effect, His promises were still good. One day a new king was going to make everything right, and in the mean time wouldn’t the God who would do that still care for those who fear Him?

Even if they didn’t get to see that day themselves, there was value in working toward it. People do that all the time - they fight for things because they hope for a better future, even if they won’t get to see it. We raise money to find cures for diseases that might take generations, or donate to organizations with goals that probably won’t be realized any time soon. People do it because they have a vision of a better world - hope for what is possible.

Isaiah presented his hope in God’s future, and that became part of what helped the Hebrew people survive and thrive under all kind of circumstnaces. God was still as work.

As far as their history goes, things actually got worse before they got better for the people of Judah. Their rulers persisted in wickedness, the Babylonian Empire eventually came along and conquered them, and many of the people were taken away as captives. But in captivity God actually worked to restore and strengthen their faith and sense of identity before making a way for them to return to their land and rebuild their home.

But they still lacked a good king. Then they ended up under Roman rule, once again living in hope of that this Immanuel, Mighty God, Prince of Peace, would come and make the fullness of Isaiah’s vision real.

Peace for Us

That was the power of Isaiah’s vision for the peopel who first received it. But, of course, Christians have re-interpreted this vision in the belief that we know exactly who this king is!

Let’s see… connected to Galilee, from the line of David, born of a virgin, a child born for this saving purpose, a wonderful counselor with authority over eternity… who could that be?

Matthew, in his Gosepl, goes to this passage to say that Jesus is this king: Matthew 4:12-17

Matthew 4:12–17 NIV

When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

This connection is picked up a little less directly in the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary about Jesus birth, when he declares: Luke 1:31-33 “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.””

From a Christian perspective, this Prince of Peace is clearly Jesus! The Messiah, God’s annointed, the long-awaited savior of the world.

But it didn’t look that way to many people of Jesus’ time. Where was this Jesus’ kingdom? He didn’t have one, He just had a scruffy band of nobodies following Him around. And He didn’t seem to be trying to get on either. He didn’t try to raise an army, or grow his influence, or challenge Rome. He preached that meek would inherit the earth. The meek!? How was he going to end up on David’s throne?

But, as Jesus would later tell the Roman governor, Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world...”

And then, as the remainder of the New Testament tells us, Jesus’ Kingdom was unleashed on the world soon after. It was not a nation. It had no armies or power. But it entered all the nations and changed them, and outlived their kings and governments. This expression of Jesus’ kingdom is the Church.

But at the Bible’s end, in the book of Revelation, there is another vision. It is a vision of the final expression of Jesus’ kingdom - the new creation where God and humanity are fully reunited in a new reality where justice, righteousness, and peace truly are established and upheld forever.

So this kingdom, and the peace it brings, is not simply A or B.

For you and I, believing in Jesus as the Prince of Peace means holding two sets of things in tension. God’s peace is both internal and external, and is both real now and also still to come.

Internal and External

What does that mean?

Well, internal and external means that, for Christians, Jesus brings spiritual peace that begins within us, and then expands to the world around us.

The spiritual peace Jesus brings comes through being reconcilled to God. When we live in rejection of God, refusing His rule and His way, there is a peace that we will lack because of that. You can bury the feeling, but many people sense when they are at odds with their creator. Jesus extends His grace for our sin, invites us to return to the family of God where we belong, and promises us a new and eternal life when we come to Him. There is peace in that - to know that I have been made right with God, have access to God, and can freely praise God and enjoy His love. That’s the internal peace of knowing the Prince of Peace.

But when I have the love of God within me it also spills out. And external peace results. Followers of Jesus seek to develop the fruit of the Spirit - the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that helps them to live at peace with others, just as the Bible tells us in Romans 12:18: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

Followers of Jesus also forgive as Jesus commanded them to forgive, which promotes peace. Someone I was listening to this week was reflecting on some strange and even hurtful ways that fellow Christians had treated them over the years, but kept coming back to the words of Jesus on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for the don’t know what they are doing.” We should take after Jesus in this, and those aren’t just words for willfully evil people. All of us, at one time or another, mess things up simply because we don’t know what we’re doing. Can we forgive ourselves and others, like Jesus?

External peace also goes beyond relationships and into the systems and structures of our world. Christians should be peacemakers who want the world we live in to treat all people with dignity and respect. There is no peace where injustice thrives.

One of the biggest examples of this in the 20th century was the way that the Church in Eastern Europe helped shatter the Soviet Union and end the Cold War peacefully. From the end of world war II until 1989 Christians in some Eastern Bloc countries faced incredible persecution, including concentration camps and forced labour camps in countries like Hungary or the Czech Republic. Clergy and ordinary Christians were suppressed and murdered, Bibles were illegal and had to be smuggled in, life was hard. But churches of all varieties were some of the few places where some freedom could be found to gather, discuss, and plan. Pope John Paul II was one of the religious leaders who famously provided encouragement and leadership to push for greater freedom - to end the oppression in these places. People with internal peace are often the most driven to seek peace between others and for others. Following the Prince of Peace will do that.

Now and Not Yet

Along with internal and exernal, the other thing to hold in tension about peace is the now and the “not yet.”

Following the Prince of Peace can give us access to some internal and external peace in the here and now. Through prayer and other spiritual disciplines we can often overcome anxiety or fear in the everyday.

And we have the opportunity to work together to create a kingdom where things are done Jesus’ way - the Church. That’s the Prince of Peace’s kingdom on Earth right now. The Church is our opportunity to live out Jesus’ commands and show the world how good God’s way is.

But a Christians’ sense of peace is also found in their future hope. 1 Corinthians 15:19 declares “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” A big part of our peace comes for our faith in what God will still do.

It’s Jesus’ promise to the criminal on the cross that “today you will be with me in paradise.”

It’s Paul’s confidence that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It’s John’s vision of seeing the new heaven and new earth, where God declares “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

In the season of Advent we celebrate Jesus’ coming at Christmas, and renew our faith in His coming to fully establish His kingdom. Unlike the people Isaiah first wrote to, we have the incredible priviledge of knowing what it means that for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

But just like them, our peace for today is built on hope for the future - of the day when we will see what it means that “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.”

Conclusion

I hope this is just the most wonderful time of the year for you right now. But, at best, it’s probably a mix of things. There’s anticipation and joy, and there’s loss and uncertainty.

If we want to look for darkness around us, we can certainly find it. There is illness an sadness and even hopelessness. There is crime and violence and war and injustice. There is simply tiredness - the lifelessness that comes from how demanding life can be. Maybe some days you feel like you are walking in darkness.

Let’s be reminded today that a light has dawned, and that light still shines. Immanuel, God with us, is our light. The Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

As we reach this second Sunday of Advent, my wish and prayer is for you to experience God’s peace.

May you experience the peace of knowing Christ, and feeling secure in His love and grace.

May your faith extend peace to your relationships and wider world through the forgiveness Jesus taught us and the qualities of His character that we seek to grow in us.

May you find peace through your part in Jesus’ church - the expression of God’s kingdom on earth. If it is not the place of loving acceptance and purposeful service that it should be, let’s do what we can to make it that way more and more.

And may you experience peace that comes from your future hope. If you belong to Jesus then eternal life is your inheritance. Everything lost will be restored, everthing broken will be redeemed, and you will stand with your creator, perfected.

Let’s turn to our king and ask for the peace we need...