The Promised Light

Prayer

The Promise of Christmas, the Promised Light

Today marks the third Sunday of Advent, and with it, the third message in our sermon series, The Promise of Christmas. We’re taking a look each week at what we celebrate at Christmas, the birth of Jesus. Who exactly is this child that is being born to us, the promises that he holds?

After all, it’s not often that the coming birth of a child is preceded by an angel, coming to announce to each of the parents who their baby is going to be. Which is exactly what we saw in our first week when the angel Gabriel came to Mary to tell her that she was going to conceive and give birth to a son who would be the promised king, the one who would rule not only over Israel, but over all nations, and ruling with righteousness and justice.

We saw it in our second week as well when the angel came to Matthew in a dream telling him that the baby his betrothed was carrying was from the Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit, but to not be afraid to take her as his wife and raise the child, because he was also going to be the Promised Savior, the one who would save his people from their sins, who would bring healing and life to all those who entrusted themselves to him.

Next Sunday we will look at Jesus as Immanuel, God with Us, and how Jesus is the Promised Reconciler, the one who makes it possible for us to be with God - and with one another. This morning, however, we’re looking at Jesus as the Promised Light, as we see in Isaiah 9:1-2:

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—2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.

Matthew quotes this passage from Isaiah in his Gospel as Jesus begins his public ministry in the region of Galilee, highlighting that in Jesus, the promised light has finally dawned. The people no longer need to walk in darkness, the light has come. This metaphor of light shining in the midst of darkness is used often for Jesus, as one of the ways Biblical writers describe who Jesus is, and what he came to do.

We see this especially in John, in both his gospel and his letters, referring to Jesus as the light - John 1:4-5 - In him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And again, in verse 9, The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

It’s how Jesus described himself, John 8:12 - When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Over and over we see that it is Jesus who is the Promised Light, the light of the world.

And as we’ve been doing throughout this series, I want to dive deeper into this description of Jesus so we have a better understanding of exactly what it is that Jesus brings us, why this is such an amazing promise to us that God has fulfilled in his son, Jesus. Thankfully for us, the Apostle Paul is a perfect example of someone walking in darkness on whom the light of Jesus shines.

In Acts 26, Paul is telling King Agrippa his story of faith, and he begins with talking about how zealous he was in persecuting followers of the Way, followers of Jesus. We pick up the story in verse 12: On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

So here’s Paul (also known as Saul), living in deep darkness, blinded to the truth of who Jesus is. He’s so caught up in this darkness that he’s traveling to foreign cities to hunt Christians down and arrest them. It’s telling that Jesus comes to him in midst of this bright light - a light brighter than the sun, one that encompasses Paul and those traveling with him.

In God’s beautiful irony, Paul is actually blinded. In another description of Paul’s conversion, we read this in Acts 9:7-9, The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. Paul’s spiritual blindness, his darkness, is now matched by physical blindness. Jesus is demonstrating to Paul that he is the Lord, and humbling him in the process, revealing to him how blinded he has been because of his zeal, how dark and deluded he’s been because he refused to recognize the truth of who Jesus is.

Listen, too, how Paul describes the charge Jesus gave him, what his calling will be, back to Acts 26, verses 16-18, Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

Jesus is sending Paul to do what Jesus himself has done in him: Jesus opened Paul’s eyes, turned him from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. Now Paul is to do the same for the Jews and the Gentiles by opening their eyes to Jesus.

Out of the Darkness into the Light

This passage gives us a greater sense of what the Bible means when it’s contrasting light versus darkness. Why this is such good news that Jesus has come, that he is the fulfillment of God’s promise of a light dawning on those living in great darkness.

Notice how Jesus describes why is sending Paul to his own people and to the Gentiles: to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God. Darkness is a metaphor for evil, for Satan - and the problem is that we are captured by this evil, ensnared by it - that’s what it means for us to be in darkness, under the power of Satan. This is what Jesus came to rescue us from.

Paul explains this further in Ephesians 5:8-12 -  For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

Paul is contrasting here what it means to be in the light versus in the dark, what the fruit of the light is versus the fruitless deeds of darkness. These deeds of darkness are not simply deeds done in the dark, in secret - but deeds that are dark, wicked, shameful. Which is why we hide them. Why we cover over them with a veneer of niceness, or with lies. We don’t want them exposed. What darkness is all about, what Satan is all about, wickedness and lies.

Fascinating to see how we play with language in order to hide evil. Consider the evil of abortion, intentional killing of an innocent human life. Instead we call it reproductive healthcare as a way to gloss over what’s really happening. One prolife ministry, Live Action, will show people videos of what actually happens in an abortion - as a way of shining a light as to what it truly is, to bring it out of the darkness.

But even in our own lives, we have our family secrets. Things we don’t talk about. Parts of our lives that we don’t post on Facebook or write about on the annual Christmas letter. Consider churches that have covered over sexual misconduct or abuse.

Invitation from Jesus, what he makes possible, because he is the Promised Light, is to open our eyes, to turn us from the darkness into the light, to be freed from the power of Satan, and instead to live under and in the power of God instead.

Jesus describes the time that he was being arrested by the Jewish leaders - which led to his trial and ultimately his execution, his death on the cross - as the hour of darkness. The time when things were most black. No light. No hope. Darkness, evil, seemingly had won. That is, of course, until the light dawned on that Sunday morning and the stone that lay in front of the tomb was rolled away.

Reminds of the time I was serving on Summer Staff at a Young Life camp in Colorado, Frontier Ranch. Late one evening I was making my way back to the guys’ staff cabin, which sat away from the rest of camp. I was going up the road and all of a sudden I hit a point where there was no more light emanating from the camp buildings. And no lights from the night sky. It was pitch black. I could not see a thing. This was in the days long before cell phones, so no easy access to a flashlight. It was scary - because I knew one side of the road sloped off and if I veered in that direction I would go tumbling down the hill. I had to travel slowly and gradually based only on the sound of the gravel of the road beneath my feet. I was incredibly relieved when I finally inched close enough to the guys’ cabin that light from that building illumined my way.

That’s the amazing thing about light, that it always wins. The smallest bit of light will shine through the darkness. Light immediately dispels darkness. Since Jesus is the true light, the light of the world, he conquers darkness. It cannot win over him. As we saw from the Gospel of John earlier - The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. It’s why Jesus - and he alone, can give light to everyone.

Invitation from Jesus is to turn from darkness to the light, to him. To walk in the light as he is in the light, as John writes in 1 John 1:7 - But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. Or, as we saw from Paul in Ephesians 5:8, that we are to live as children of light. Then he tells us in vs. 9 what that means - for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth.

So here’s the main point - if Jesus is the light of the world promised to us, if he is the one who has come to bring us the light of life, then our response is to come into the light. To walk in the light. To live as children of light. All this imagery is an invitation to come to Jesus with an openness, nothing hidden, nothing kept in secret. Jesus, here I am. To open up to Jesus every aspect of who we are, from what’s plain and obvious on the surface to the deepest, darkest aspects of our soul. “Jesus, shine your light on my heart.”

It’s important to recognize here that this is easier said than done. Because we are sinful people, we want to stay in the dark. We prefer that certain aspects of who we are stay hidden. This has been true from the very beginning - It’s telling that the very first impulse of Adam and Eve after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, after they had sinned, was to hide. To hide from God as he was walking through the garden. To hide from one another by covering themselves. Before they were naked and unashamed, free to be completely open and vulnerable with each other. Now they were naked and felt exposed, ashamed- and sought to cover themselves. They sought the darkness.

This is why coming into the light of Christ is scary - because of the feeling of being exposed. Nothing hidden. We prefer only letting others see the aspects of ourselves that we want them to see. Impression management - I try to manage your impression of me. But listen to what Scripture teaches us in John 3:19-21, This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

The invitation from Jesus is to come into the light. And to stay in the light, to walk in it, so that we might become children of light. Because in the light there is no evil. No wickedness, no lies. Why the fruit of the light is the opposite of those - it is goodness, righteousness, and truth. It’s as we come into the light that fruit is born in us.

We move from evil and wickedness to goodness and righteousness. To obedience to Jesus. It is to live in a way that does not require hiding or covering over because there is nothing shameful about what you are doing.

To turn from darkness to light is not only turn from evil to good, but from lies to truth. After all, Satan is the father of lies. He, as Paul writes, masquerades as an angel of light. To live in the truth is to be willing to come into the light and let light shine on us, on our misdeeds, on our hearts - because we love the light so much more than we love darkness.

Finally, to turn from darkness to light is to have our lives illuminated by Jesus - Ephesians 5:13-14 - But everything exposed by the light becomes visible - and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Because of Jesus’ light shining on us, we, too become light. We become the light of the world with Jesus. Because we are children of the light, we bear the fruit of the light - goodness, righteousness, truth. Our lives become an invitation to others to come into the light.

And what a beautiful invitation that is. From Jesus to us, to come into his life. To walk with him in goodness and the truth. Hopefully, then, from us to others, as we let our light so shine before others, as Jesus says, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Because this is the truth - as scary as it may seem to come into the light, to let our deeds, our lives, be exposed - there’s also great freedom in it. All the work we do to hide, to cover over, to manage impressions. I love Mark Twain’s quote, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

In the end, I think people long for the light. Long to move out of darkness, out of hiding. To not have to keep secrets, to live in shame. Instead to come into the light and experience the beauty of Jesus knowing us - and loving us, just as we are. This, more than anything else is what frees us to come into the light, the unabashed grace of Jesus. Absolutely lack of condemnation - instead, the full embrace of loving grace. Jesus endured the darkness, conquered, so that we could be in the light as he is in the light.

Spiritual Practice

There’s no better spiritual practice to come into the light than the Discipline of Confession - both personal and corporate, confess your sins to one another. Confession is to invite Jesus to shine his light on our hearts - so that we can become people of righteousness (obedience) and truth.

Closing Prayer / Time of Reflection - to come into the light