Advent in Isaiah: The Light that Leads Home (Isaiah 49:6-13)

What Do You Want for Christmas?

What do you want for Christmas? And I don’t mean the item—the thing you can wrap and put under a tree. I mean: what do you really want? Do you want the fighting to stop? Do you want the kids to come home… or at least call? Do you want the tension at work to ease, the toxic environment to change, the knot in your stomach to finally loosen? Do you want the debt to stop breathing down your neck? Do you want the loneliness to lift—even just a little? Do you want your mind to quiet down for one night so you can sleep? “Home is where the heart is” sounds nice on a plaque… until you’ve lived in a house where the heart doesn’t feel safe.

We’ve been in this series “Coming home for Christmas” throughout Advent and we’ve been in the book of Isaiah. And the passage we just read moments ago… is where all of this lands. Isaiah 49 is where Isaiah is not only speaking to people who know what it means to want home, but going home is being held out as a promise.

That’s why Isaiah 49 is such a mercy. Because it doesn’t pretend our earthly “homes” always live up to the word. Isaiah is spoken to exiles—people for whom “home” was ruins and memory and ache. And it is here God is making a fantastic promise: I’m coming and I’m going to fix this myself.

What Would Israel Want for Christmas in Babylon?

You read this and you realize you’re not the only one wondering where home went. Israel is in Babylon—hundreds of miles from home, in a culture that isn’t theirs, language that isn’t theirs, everything familiar stripped away. If they “celebrated Christmas,” what do you think would be on their list? Not gadgets. Not upgrades. Not “one more thing to make life convenient.” Home. They want to go home.

But even that’s complicated, because when they finally get back—Jerusalem isn’t sparkling. It’s not the picture-perfect homecoming. It’s rubble. It’s loss. It’s reminders. It’s, “Yes, it’s home… but it doesn’t feel like home.”

Israel hasn’t been silent… they cry out in the darkness for rescue. And God in his grace and mercy hears:

Isaiah 49:8 This is what the Lord says: I will answer you in a time of favor, and I will help you in the day of salvation.

They cry out and God says… I’m going to answer you. And when I do, it will be a day of salvation. The grand day of the Lord when God will stop everything and in one big, earth-shattering event give His people salvation.

A Light to Lead Home

And that’s exactly why God’s promise in Isaiah 49 is so much better than “go back to the ruins.” God promises something deeper than geography. He promises a homecoming marked by rescue and comfort and compassion.

Here’s what God promises to Israel, who are in darkness in Babylon:

Isaiah 49:6 The LORD says , “It is not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel. I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

The first thing we need to see here is that God is sending His Servant. This is the Servant that Isaiah has been talking about throughout his book, the Servant who will rescue God’s people. This Servant is even called Israel, because He will what Israel was supposed to do, but didn’t. He’s Israel in One Person, restoring Israel, and bringing salvation to his people.

But he’s not going to save His people through worldly power. The Servant is marked by suffering and rejection and death. But it’s that suffering and death that saves… His people.

And not only his people… the second thing we see here in verse 6 is that it’s not just Israel. This salvation is for the whole world. God is not doing a private rescue mission. He’s not just patching Israel up. He’s not just improving a few moral behaviors, handing out a few religious tips, and calling it salvation. God is doing something cosmic—something that reaches all the way out to the ends of the earth. This rescue is for the nations and to the ends of the earth.

But then we need to see that the Servant is a Light. That light shows up in Isaiah 49, but often we have this idea that the light is something like a candle or a lighthouse that is a fixed point… or a general light for darkness. We’re all familiar with lighthouses. We’ve got one right here at Port Isabel—no longer really functioning as a safe beacon as it did when it was first built… But this Light in Isaiah 49 doesn’t just mark the safe channel and hope you can steer well enough to make it. This Light is a person — the Servant — and He doesn’t stand on the shore yelling directions. He comes into the dark and He saves. This Light is Salvation itself coming into the darkness to rescue His people and lead them home.

A Light to create home

But this Light does so much more

Isaiah 49:9–11 They will feed along the pathways, and their pastures will be on all the barren heights. They will not hunger or thirst, the scorching heat or sun will not strike them; for their compassionate one will guide them, and lead them to springs. I will make all my mountains into a road, and my highways will be raised up.

He promises guidance and food and water and shelter. He promises that the scattered will be gathered—“from far away”. He promises roads where there weren’t roads.

The Servant isn’t handing out a map back to Jerusalem and saying, “Hope you make it.” The Servant is the kind of Light whose nearness recreates the world around the traveler: “They shall feed along the ways… they shall not hunger or thirst… by springs of water will guide them… I will make all my mountains a road.” The road becomes pasture. The journey becomes provision. Obstacles become highways. In other words: home starts happening along the way because the Servant is there.

Jesus is leading and creating Home — FOR YOU

Isaiah doesn’t leave us to wonder how the Servant will do this…

Isaiah 49:2 He made my words like a sharp sword

The Servant’s primary weapon isn’t muscle or machinery or political leverage. It’s His Word—a Word that cuts through lies, exposes what’s killing us, and then speaks life where there wasn’t life. That’s why the “making home” imagery in vv.9–11 isn’t just scenery; it’s the effect of His speech. He says, “Come out,” and prisoners come out. He says, “Appear,” and those swallowed by darkness step into the light. He leads, He feeds, He guides to springs—because His Word doesn’t merely describe reality, it creates it.

Wherever the Servant goes, the old is made new—not because people finally get their act together, but because His Word is doing what only God can do. The Word that forgives is already rebuilding the ruins. The Word that absolves is already turning exile into home. The Word that regenerates is already making things alive and growing. Advent is God stepping out of heaven and bring the Word to the world in flesh and bones—so that “home” is no longer just a place we wish existed, but a reality Christ is actively creating by His promise, and by His presence… for Israel and for the nations, for the far off and for us.

All of this is deeply Advent.

Christ doesn’t just announce that a better world is coming—He arrives and the new creation starts to show up in His wake. Forgiveness isn’t a concept; it’s spoken. Captivity isn’t just named; it’s broken. Shame isn’t just noticed; it’s covered. The Light doesn’t merely lead you to comfort; He makes comfort, because He is compassion in the flesh. Wherever Jesus goes, exile begins to thaw. Wherever Jesus is given—Word, water, bread and wine—spring starts breaking through the ground.

Jesus is HOME — FOR YOU

The Light leads home: not by your progress, but by His promises. And that’s why the Church, even in Advent, is never merely sentimental. We’re not trying to create a holiday mood. We’re receiving a Deliverer. A Shepherd. A Servant-King. The One who brings salvation “to the end of the earth” (v.6)—which means to the end of your rope, too.

And that brings us back to the question we started with: what do you really want for Christmas? The rest we long for… the end of striving, the end of proving, the end of being judged—where what’s wrong is finally made right… it has been answered by the baby in the manger. Through His cross.

If you’re wondering why things don’t feel like home—if you’re frustrated that as hard as you try this Christmas season it still doesn’t feel safe, still doesn’t feel settled… if you’re full of anxiety because it feels like all of life is working against anything ever feeling like home… if you’re carrying a quiet hopelessness because it really does seem like you’ll never have home again..If you came here today wishing home could finally be home—safe, comforting, peaceful—then please hear Isaiah’s words as God’s Promise to you and fOR YOU, not something that is way down the road, but something he is providing for you now. God is not scolding you for wanting home. He’s answering you.

That’s the great thing about what we celebrate on Thursday!! That baby in the manger in the nativity scene—that’s not just a nice, cute symbol of the true meaning of Christmas. That’s the Servant Isaiah has been talking about. The Light for the nations. The One whose mouth is a sword—whose Word actually does things: frees prisoners, calls people out of darkness, makes roads where there weren’t roads, feeds along the way, leads with pity, and brings the far-off home.

The home you’re longing for is not something you have to manufacture by effort or keep together by anxiety. It’s something Christ is creating for you by His Word and by His presence. So even if your house feels tense, even if your heart feels restless, even if you feel far away—hear this: the Servant’s mission is big enough to reach you, and His comfort is real enough to hold you.

He has come to be Home for you.

The manger is God’s “Yes” to you. The cross is God’s “Paid in full” for you. The empty tomb is God’s “Death doesn’t get you” for you.

This is Jesus’ unconditional, unstoppable, unrelenting love for us. It’s “too small” if salvation stays contained—so the Servant comes as Light for the nations, reaching the far off, the scattered, the ones who feel outside the circle. And He doesn’t love us from a safe distance; He enters the exile, bears the weight of it, and speaks with a mouth like a sword—His living, forgiving Word that actually breaks chains. He doesn’t just point toward home and hope we find it; He leads with pity, He feeds along the way, He quenches thirst, He makes roads where there were mountains, and He comforts the afflicted. That is SO MUCH LOVE. That is His Grace FOR YOU. His presence… His Word of forgiveness. FOR YOU.

So if you need a home that is truly home—safe, comforting, peaceful, where you’re not on trial—look at the manger and hear Isaiah’s promise fulfilled: the Servant has come. Emmanuel. God with us. To make His home with us. To be home for us. For you.

Let’s Pray

The Table

This Table is not a reward for the people who finally got it together, but food for people who are home. Here Christ speaks His liberating Word—“for you”—and He does what He says: He feeds, He strengthens, He quiets the accusing voice, He gives rest deeper than sleep—the end of striving, the end of being on trial. He is making home FOR YOU right here in His body and in His blood.

Benediction