Light in the Darkness Is 9

This passage is a common Christmas season text. You may have seen verses six and seven in Hobby Lobby, you may even have some pieces in your home. Or perhaps you have gotten Christmas cards in the mail that have those last two verses on it. But the promise made in this verse is more than just a child born. Rather it is a message of hope and rejoicing in the darkest of nights.

This portion of Isaiah’s prophecy begins by addressing those walking and dwelling in darkness. This may seem strange or cryptic to us. We often times read the prophets and have to deal with using images and words that the author thinks we’re supposed to already know. On my first reading it was like when you walk up to two people who are in the middle of a very interesting story. The back ground informs our understanding of the passage. So what we need to help us is to take some time to get familiar with the context.

Isaiah is speaking into a period of Israel’s history that is marked by the darkness of sin and the shadow of it’s consequences. Israel is at this time divided into the northern Israel and southern Judah which is ruled by a King named Ahaz. Ahaz was incredibly wicked. Scripture says that he led the people into more intense Baal worship going as so far as to sacrifice at least one of his own children to Canaanite gods. He abandoned the worship of God, eventually raiding the treasury of the Lord, shutting down and sealing the Temple. Rather he set up pagan altars and high places for all of the people to offer their own sacrifices and perform their own rituals. What Ahaz father tolerated- Ahaz subsidized. But God is not mocked.

We read that because of the sins that Ahaz leads Judah into, the Lord raises up Syria and Israel and they attack Judah. We read in Chronicles that Judah was routed in battle. 120,000 strong warriors died, their wives and children hauled off to slavery. The economic capital of Israel was sacked. The Philistines and Edomites were also raiding the land. and instead of trusting in the Lord to save, Ahaz goes to Tiglath-pilesar, the feared king of Assyria, and swears his loyalty to him. He takes the Temple treasury and again uses it to bribe Assyria to save Judah. The King of Assyria is more than willing to come and he absolutely devastates the Northern Kingdom. They are effectively destroyed and led into exile. One man sins and hundreds of thousands suffer the consequences.

If you’re just a person working their fields or selling their wares this is hard. IF they hadn’t been killed or carried away into slavery, they likely had family who had. They’re living in a war zone. Walking in the darkness of royal endorsed sin, and dwelling in the darkness of it’s consequences. It’s to these people that Isaiah is speaking. He’s declaring the Lord’s promise in light of all of the wickedness, all of the evil, and all of the very real emotions of the people.

But it doesn’t take long for us to see that we are not so much different than they are. While we may not subsidize occult pagan practice, we are very good at raising up our own Baal’s . It was Luther who is credited with the statement, “whatever your heart clings to is really your god.” And as a society we cling to so much. We make a god of a so called american dream, perfect life style with picket fences and rustic interiors. We raise up altars at work, and sacrifice our families on them. We raise them up in finding wealth, and sacrifice our sanity on them.

We may not sacrifice children in the Valley of Hinnom but we do sacrifice those made in the image of God for our own benefit-across political lines. We will justify violence for one group and decry it for others. We will speak out for the cause of one social group and yet look down on another. And if we find out that you aren’t in my group, we’re going to fight. If we don’t take up the same social causes with the same solutions- we’ll that person just doesn’t get it. We cant live in peace. And that’s says nothing of our own personal sins. That says nothing of our personal inconsistencies.

We too are held captive by sin itself. The things that we keep private or just visible at home. It reigns over us and we languish in the defeat. And you may be here today walking in the darkness.

And we feel this. We all have experienced, maybe even very recently the frustration that comes with either our own sin, or the public sins of others. We see the sickness, the broken marriages, the hungry children, the cultural perversion, or the economic tightness and it weighs on us. We know that this is not the way that things ought to be. And we are left shaking our head in the mess that we find ourselves.

Or perhaps you’re dwelling in the darkness. This word that is used is the same word for “shadow of death” in Psalm 23. We would best understand it as “rock bottom”. The darkness isn’t turning off the lights and going into the closet. It’s not going out into the country night without a flashlight. It is more like going down into a deep, unfamiliar cave and then suddenly someone turns out the light. It is not just a bad day or a long week. It is not just the car wouldn’t start. It is death. It is ruin. It is the destruction of families. It is the worst imaginable tragedy that you could think of. It is the moment that life hits you in the mouth and kicks you while you’re down. And today that may be you. You may be dwelling in the darkness.

And so, when faced with the reality of living in a fallen world, we naturally join the people of Isaiah’s day wondering, “Is there any hope? Will sin and misery have the final word?”

And if this is you this morning. Isaiah has wonderful news for you this morning. -read v 1-2- The good news of the Gospel is that God has sent his light the Lord Jesus Christ into the darkness of our sin and misery. In the face of their failure, their idolatry, their abandonment of Him- he brings in hope and light. The very lands where God treats with contempt by sending Assyrian soldiers, He promises to restore and honor them. And take note at how he speaks. He does not say that they will see a great light. Rather it is past tense- in fact all of the promises in this section, even though they are hundreds of years later, are given as if it has already occured. God is saying “The hope that I will bring is so sure- that I can speak of it as if it’s already happened”

This is a radically different idea of hope than what we generally speak of today. This is not desire in the unknown. It’s not the same as “I hope I get so and so for Christmas” but a trust grounded in the promises of God. It’s relying on God to be who He is and do what He commits to do. What we see in Scripture is that He is the covenant keeping faithful One. That we do not have to doubt His promises. And the greatest of these promises is the sending of His Son.

All the way back in Genesis 3 God has been promising a seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. And since that time the people of God had been waiting on this promised Messiah who would deliver them. Scripture speaks clearly that this light is Jesus. John writes at the beginning of his gospel that John 1:4 “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” When Matthew records that Jesus made his home in Capernaum, he adds that by doing this Christ fulfilled this prophecy in Isaiah 9. Even before his birth, Zechariah says in Luke 1:76-79 “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.””

And in is coming he brings us joy. And when we consider the state that we are in, joy is so hard to find. It is beyond just being cheerful. Rather it is a delight in the Lord. It is the enjoying God part of our end. Joy is not blind to the present circumstances, but rather is an outworking of hope. And it’s foundation is in Christ him. It is because the light has shone that our joy is increased. Isaiah is saying to us, yes the world is dark now. We live in a state of sin and misery. But God will come and set all these things right. And for you it will not be doom and gloom, but celebration and rejoicing.

But not only does Christ bring joy, but also freedom. He says in verse four that he has broken the yoke and the rod of his oppressor, as it was on the day of Midian. This reference may seem obscure, but Isaiah is calling back to the story of Gideon. During a time when the people of God were oppressed and God raised up a low Gideon. But instead of delivering the people with a mighty army, he uses a small band of soldiers.

What God is saying here is this, “I will come. And I’m going to bring you joy, and I will give you hope. But not only these things, I’m going to set you free. No matter what chains or yoke of sin weighs you down, I will break it. You will be free. I will set everything right. Everything will be over.

He also brings peace. Verse five speaks of the boots and bloody garments of the soldiers being burned as fire fuel. This is a reference to the times after a great battle when the field is littered with the garments of the soldiers who had fought, that people would come and gather up these things from the field- because the war is over. That there is no more fighting. It is a peace that does not fade away. This is what Christ brings to us. In his coming to us and shining on us, He brings us hope and joy, freedom, and peace.

But he does not do it how we would it expect Him to. He brings us hope by his death. He bring joy through his torment. He sets us free by taking our sin and dying in our place. He gives us peace by bearing the wrath of God for us. He comes to confront by sin by forgiving it. And I’m not sure this is how we would want it.

We see the brokenness of the world, the darkness of sin, and we want it fixed. We see the armies surrounding the city and say, I’ll call my own army. I’ll just get my own Tiglath-pilesar to come and fix it. That’s what we really want. We want to address sin through the voting booth. We want to fight sin by telling celebrities and political parties, “I am in danger and am your son and servant” just like Ahaz does. But righteousness doesn’t come by getting the right person of the right party in the right position. it doesn’t come through a court. It doesn’t come by passing laws. It comes through a dying savior. It comes through the Gospel.

This is the good news of the Gospel for you this morning: Christ the promised seed of Eve has come and died in your place and through his death brings with him hope of life, joy in the holy spirit, freedom from sin and even more so peace with God. And because you have peace with God there is nothing that does not as Paul says in Romans 8 work for your God and God’s glory. That even in the moments where we are pressed down and feel defeated and abandoned, God promises that even in those moments He is making us like Christ. So then all of the injustice, sin, misery, death, violence, and disaster around us, does not get the final word. They may speak loudly now. They may cause us pain. But they are not the end. Spring does come, the sun does dawn in the morning.

And see how Christ comes. He comes humbly yes. But he doesn’t stand outside of us to save us. He does not remove himself from us. Rather He comes as a baby. God Himself adds humanity to His divinity and Christ joins us and dwells among the fallen. He becomes like us to set us free. It always hits me around this time every Christmas. That God became a baby. The shoulders that hid kingdom sits on were at one time very small. That a small child is Mighty God and Prince of Peace. He came as a baby. And Isaiah called the people to look hopefully for his coming.

But for us, we do not only look back. We may see the with some clarity the light shining in the darkness. God has blessed us that we are born after Christ so that we may see Him. But we too look forward to the far better day. We also know that just because Christ has come, does not make the world righteous today. But what Isaiah speaks of in verse seven is why we are waiting with hope.

He speaks of the day of the Lord. When Christ comes not to redeem a people, but for His kingdom to come in full. This kingdom is not undone by bad successors like Ahaz. It is not threatened by the Assyrians or any of it’s neighbors because it has already conquered them. We do not have to fear the sins of rulers bearing their consequences because sin will be defeated and swallowed. Death will be dead. Christ will reign forever just as God has promised. And there will be justice. There will be peace and righteousness int he world.

So when we are faced with the pain and misery of life, we look to the light of Christ. We look to His death, through which He has brought us peace and freedom. But we also take heart looking and waiting for the day when He makes everything right and new.

Let’s pray