“When Darkness Doesn’t Get the Last Word”

Foundational Text:

Isaiah 9:1–7 ESV

1 But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. 3 You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. 4 For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. 5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

What Is Advent?

Advent is the season when the Church leans forward in holy expectation, remembering the God who has come, anticipating the God who will come again, and recognizing the God who keeps breaking into our present darkness. The word itself means “arrival,” but Advent is more than a date on the calendar—it is heaven stepping toward earth, the Light walking into the night, God refusing to let the world remain as it is. It holds the tension of memory and hope, looking back to Bethlehem, looking ahead to Christ’s return in glory, and looking around at the places where we desperately need Him to show up right now. Advent teaches us that while the world treats darkness like destiny, God treats darkness like an opportunity for revelation. It is the season where hope pushes back against despair, peace confronts anxiety, joy refuses to wait for circumstances to improve, and love puts on flesh to dwell among us. Advent is God’s announcement: “I’m on the way—and the night will not write the end of your story.”

“The Season Starts in the Dark”

Advent doesn’t open with Christmas lights. It doesn’t open with shepherds singing or angels celebrating. The liturgical year begins with silence, shadows, and staggering darkness. The first candle we light is not the candle of joy, peace or love. It is the candle of hope—because God insists on starting where we actually are. Isaiah tells the truth: “The people walking in darkness…” Not glancing at it, not passing through it, but walking in it, living in it, and trying to survive it. Darkness is not imaginary; it is experiential. However, darkness never gets the last word in the story God writes. Advent is the annual announcement from the throne of heaven: “I still invade what overwhelms you. I still penetrate what surrounds you, and I still break what tries to break you.” This text is God’s reminder that He is not intimidated by the night. He does not negotiate with shadows. He does not bow to the power of the dark. He breaks it. This is Advent: the Light refuses to stay at a distance.

Proposition

Advent teaches us that darkness is real, but darkness is not ruling—because Hope is already on the way.

Antithesis

“The world treats darkness like destiny, as if nothing brighter is coming.”

Isaiah stands in a world convinced that darkness is permanent. The people of God were not simply in darkness—they had begun to normalize it. They had been surrounded by shadow for so long that they assured nothing else existed. That is what darkness does: the longer you sit in it, the more believable it feels.

And this is where the antithesis stands in sharp contrast to the Advent gospel. The world says: “This is how things are. This is how things will stay.” Isaiah says: “Light is coming.” The world says: “Just get used to it.” Advent says: “God refuses to let you adjust to what He intends to change.”

The world puts its trust in the patterns of pain, the cycles of despair, the grip of oppression. The world has faith in the night. The world invests in what is broken. But Advent breaks into that narrative with a wholly different truth: Darkness may be familiar, but it is not final.

The world will tell you darkness is all there is. The world will tell you nothing brighter is coming. The world will tell you to settle, accept, adjust, resign, Yet, Advent tells you the opposite. Light does not wait for permission—light breaks in. God refuses to let His people confuse a temporary condition with an eternal decree.

Thesis

“Advent declares that God interrupts darkness with a decisive word of hope.”

If the antithesis exposes the world’s resignation to darkness, then the thesis announces heaven’s refusal to accept it. Isaiah apseaks into a landscape drenched in shadow and declares that God is not a passive observer of the night—He is an active interrupter. The thesis stands as a divine contradiction. Darkness speaks one narrative; God speas another. Darkness announces endurance; God announces expiration. Darkness wants to be permanent; God declares it provisional. Advent is not humanity reaching god God. Advent is God breaking into a world that has stopped reaching.

Context of Isaiah 9:1-7

Isaiah steps into that darkness as a prophet who refuses to let the final word belong to fear. The previous chapter ends with a nation “thrust into thick darkness”—a poetic way of saying, they can’t see their way forward because they’ve forgotten the One who leads them. However, chapter 9 opens like a sudden sunrise breaking through an unexpected horizon. The prophetic tone shifts from judgment to hope, from collapse to restoration, from the gloom that surrounds them to the glory that is coming to them.

Isaiah begins by naming the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali—borderlands that had been the first to taste the brutality of Assyria. These were not glamorous regions. They were not politically powerful or spiritually prestigious. They were ordinary towns filled with ordinary people living under extraordinary pressure. Yet Isaiah announces that the very places that suffered first will see glory first. God intentionally chooses the most devastated regions as the first recipients of divine light. This is not accidental geography; this is God’s redemptive strategy. In Scripture, the places most wounded often become the places most visited by grace.

“The Street Nobody Bragged About”

When I was growing up, every city had that neighborhood. You know the one— the street nobody bragged about, the part of town people tried to avoid, the area realtors never highlighted and politicians only visited during election season.

It was the place folks whispered about: “Don’t go over there.” “Nothing good comes from that side.” “That’s the forgotten neighborhood.”

But here’s the thing: that neighborhood always had life in it. Children still played in the streets. Mothers still prayed in their kitchens. Grandmothers still held the community together with a strength nobody recognized. People survived there, dreamed there, hoped there— even while the rest of the city acted like it didn’t exist.

One year, the city announced a massive renovation. But instead of starting downtown— instead of beautifying the wealthy neighborhoods or the places tourists frequent— the planners shocked everybody.

They started with the forgotten neighborhood.

New streetlights went up. Parks were rebuilt. Schools were renovated. Businesses reopened. The whole area was transformed.

People were confused. Why start there?

And the city leaders said, “We started here because this is where the pain hit first. And we want this to be the place where hope shines first.”

PREACHING BRIDGE

That’s exactly what Isaiah is saying.

Galilee was Israel’s forgotten neighborhood. The place nobody bragged about. The region religious elites looked down on. The soil soaked in suffering, shame, and invasion.

But God said: “I’m going to start My restoration right there. Where the darkness was deepest, that’s where My glory will shine brightest.”

So when Jesus launched His ministry, He didn’t start in Jerusalem— He started in Galilee.

Because God loves to begin where the world refuses to look. God loves to bless the places people have written off. God loves to raise up what others have buried. God loves to make glorious the very streets we call forgotten.

Hope Presents a Realistic Assessment (v. 1-2)

Faith and hope do not blind one from reality, it provides comfort while waiting on God to deliver one from their reality. Paul in regards to Abraham in Romans 4:17-18 said this when God promised him a son:

Romans 4:17–18 ESV

17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

The nation has been ravaged by the Assyrian army, and as a result the nation has been thrown into darkness and despair. This prophecy rises out of one of the bleakest seasons in Israel’s memory. The nation is trembling beneath the shadow of the Assyrian war machine, and the people of God—once confident, covenant-rooted, and mission-minded—now wander through a darkness of their own making. Their king, Ahaz, is a man ruled by their fear instead of faith, willing to trust foreign alliances but hesitant to trust the God who established his throne. The spiritual climate is thick and heavy; the political atmosphere is chaotic; the moral landscape is fractured. In short, it is a moment when darkness feels more real than hope, and despair seems more logical than truth.

Isaiah then describes the people as those who “walked in darkness” and “dwelt in the land of deep darkness.” These verbs are not incidental. Walking in darkness means they lived in it, moved through it, made decisions inside it. Dwelling in darkness means they had accepted it as normal. Their grief had become their address; their confusion had become their culture. But in the very midst of that darkness, Isaiah declares that a great light is breaking upon them. Not a flicker. Not a candle. A great light—heaven’s intentional answer to humanity’s profound suffering. From the prophet’s perspective, he does not hide the condition of the nation He refused to pretend that things are fine: “The people walked in darkness…those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness…”

“Walked” — הַהֹלְכִים (hahōlĕḵîm) — conveys movement, continuity, and habit. To “walk” in darkness is to navigate life in a condition of ongoing gloom.

This verb implies:

Walked (Hebrew: הַהֹלְכִים / hahōlĕḵîm) describes:

people continuing through life

people making daily decisions

people functioning with limited visibility

people navigating the world without clarity or direction

These are the people who say:

“I’m still going… but I can’t see where I’m going.”

“I’m pushing, but I’m confused.”

“I’m functioning, but not flourishing.”

Walking = activity despite the darkness. Darkness was their environment, not an interruption. The people adjusted to a broken situation. Walking shows adaptation—trying to function while unable to see clearly. They’re surviving, not surrendered—but they’re struggling. “They learned to live with what God never meant for them to expect.”

The miracle for the walkers:

They “have seen a great light.” This means the light becomes perceptible, visible, recognizable.

For people who were moving in the dark, God gives revelation.

“Dwelt” — Hebrew: יֹשְׁבֵי (yōshĕvē) Means to sit down, settle, reside, or remain.

Key idea: They weren’t just moving through darkness; they had made a home in it.

Dwelt (Hebrew: יֹשְׁבֵי / yôshĕvē) means:

to sit

to settle

to remain

to inhabit

to accept as normal

to become rooted

These are the people who say:

“This is just how life is now.”

“Nothing is going to change.”

“I’ve gotten used to these shadows.”

Dwelling = resignation to the darkness. They’re not fighting anymore. They’re sitting in it. They’ve given up trying.

And notice: It’s not just “darkness”—it’s “deep darkness” (tsalmāwet). This is the same word for the shadow of death in Psalm 23.

The miracle for the dwellers:

“On them a light has shone.” This is not something they see—this is something that hits them. The verb is aggressive: the light breaks in and shines on them, even if they weren’t looking for it.

For people who were stuck in the dark, God gives intervention.

Why Isaiah Uses Both Verbs Together

Isaiah uses both verbs to show:

A. Darkness was both external and internal.

They walked in the environment of darkness. They dwelt in the internal acceptance of darkness.

B. The people were both moving and stuck.

They were trying, but they were tired. They were functioning, but not flourishing.

C. Both verbs highlight the severity of their condition so the miracle of light feels even more powerful.

The people who:

walked (ongoing struggle)

dwelt (settled resignation)

“have seen a great light.”

This contrast shows that the light broke into a people who no longer expected anything to change.

God shines into places where people have stopped looking for Him.

Hebrew poetry uses parallel lines to deepen meaning:

Line A: walked in darkness Line B: dwelt in deep darkness

The second line strengthens the first:

“Darkness” becomes “deep darkness” (tsalmāwet).

“Walked” becomes “dwelt.”

Isaiah is raising the stakes: The darkness was worse than the people thought. But the light was stronger than the darkness could handle.“Some are walking in darkness—still moving, still functioning…But others have dwelt in it—settled in it, accepted it, called it normal. And yet the text says: to BOTH groups… the Light has shone.”

You can preach:

God reaches the wandering.

God reaches the weary.

God reaches the stuck.

God reaches the resigned.

Whether you walked into darkness or built your life in it—the Light still comes for you.

Isaiah uses “walked” and “dwelt” to show that: Hope doesn’t come to people who are almost out. Hope comes to people who are all the way in. Advent is God entering the places we cannot exit on our own.

Hope is a Promise, not a Possibility

The verbs shift. God speaks about the future as if it is already established.

“You have multiplied…” “You have increased their joy…” “The rod is broken…”

This is the prophetic perfect tense—God talking about tomorrow in the grammar of yesterday.

Why does God speak this way? Because heaven finishes what earth has not yet seen. Tell somebody

You preach: “Your hope is not pending; it’s processed. You’re waiting on the manifestation, not the manufacturing.”

Verses 3–5 show us three promises:

A. Joy multiplied

Not added—multiplied.

B. Oppression shattered

The “yoke,” “bar,” and “rod” (v. 4) echo Israel’s slavery in Egypt. Isaiah says what God did before, He’ll do again—but bigger.

C. War reversed

Boots and garments used for battle will be burned because the war is ending.

Hope does not just brighten the darkness; it breaks the systems that created it.

Homiletical Insight Sidebar:

Lean in on the prophetic perfect—God is not predicting; God is announcing. Preachers must help the church see what God already settled.

Hope Has a Name

What makes this passage even more stunning is the prophetic tense Isaiah chooses. He speaks about a future child using past-tense certainty: “A child is born… a son is given.” Isaiah uses what scholars call the prophetic perfect—describing what God will do as though He has already done it. In Isaiah’s mind, once God speaks it, the future becomes as solid as the past. The prophecy is so sure, Isaiah writes it like history. John the Apostle records: Rev. 5:11-12

Revelation 5:11–12 ESV

11 Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

The child Isaiah announces is no ordinary heir. He is the culmination of the Davidic promise. He carries divine titles that transcend human categories: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. These names are not poetic compliments—they are theological declarations. This child is wisdom without flaw, power without limit, compassion without end, and peace without rival. His government will not just arrive; it will increase. His peace will just stabilize; it will expand. And unlie the failed reign of Ahaz, this kingdom will not crumble, falter, or fade. All the promises collapse into a Person: “For unto us a child is born…”

This is not abstract comfort…This is incarnation…This is God saying, “I’m coming Myself.”

Then Isaiah gives us the fourfold throne name:

1. Wonderful Counselor

Not merely wise—miraculously wise. He discerns what confuses you. He guides where you pause. Jesus is not confused about your confusion.

2. Mighty God

Hebrew: El Gibbor The God who fights and cannot lose. He breaks the power of what tries to break you.

3. Everlasting Father

Not in the Trinitarian sense—Israel heard “protector, provider, covenant-keeper.” Jesus embodies fatherly stability in a world of emotional inconsistency.

4. Prince of Peace

Not peacekeeper—Peacemaker. He doesn’t negotiate with chaos; He subdues it.

These names are not titles. They are realities breaking into real darkness.

Homiletical Insight Sidebar:

This moment is your Christological pivot—move from what God promised to WHO God sent.

Text: Isaiah 9:7

“The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

Zeal (Hebrew qin’ah) means:

burning passion

relentless commitment

divine jealousy

God’s refusal to let His promise fail

Isaiah closes the passage with a line that anchors the whole prophecy: “The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” In other words, this salvation will not depend on Israel’s strength, political alliances, or royal competence. This is God’s work, driven by God’s passion, secured by God’s covenant, and guaranteed by God’s own zeal. So the context of Isaiah 9:1-7 is not merely historical; it is theological and pastoral. It is a word spoken to people who have lost their way, reminding them that God has not lost His promise. It is a declaration that divine light can break through human darkness, that hope can rise from despair, and that God’s commitment to His people will always outlast their failure. In the middle of national instability, spiritual confusion, and emotional exhaustion, Isaiah announces a truth still needed today: God has already prepared the answer while we are still sitting in the problem. The answer comes wrapped not in military strength or political strategy—but in a child, a Son, whose kingdom will never end. Advent is God saying: “I’m stepping into the night, and I’m bringing dawn with Me.”

This is not gentle energy—this is God fighting for His word with fire in His bones.

You preach: “Your hope is secure because God is stubborn about keeping His promise.”

The government is on His shoulders—not yours. The future rests in His hands—not yours. Hope is guaranteed because God Himself is the guarantor.

CELEBRATION — “The Light Breaks the Darkness”

And I hear Isaiah announcing across centuries: “The people who walked in darkness— YES, THEY— have seen a great light!”

A light that does not dim. A light that does not weaken. A light that does not flicker. A light the darkness cannot comprehend.

Born in Bethlehem. Wrapped in humanity. Cradled in a manger. Visited by shepherds. Hunted by Herod. Prophesied by Isaiah. Revealed in Advent. And present in this sanctuary right now.

The darkness had a plan— but the Light had power.

And the shout of the text is this: The Light didn’t come from the people; the Light came TO the people.

That’s Advent. That’s hope. That’s Jesus.

Declare that DARKNESS DOES NOT HAVE THE LAST WORD OVER MY LIFE!!!!!!