Quick show of hands, who here is looking forward to lighting our candles and singing Silent Night? I think that is a favorite moment for many people, and, for me, anyhow, a cherished memory going back to my childhood.
That part of the service has become even more special to me
because of my vantage point in the room. The room gets dark, and the candles
get lit, slowly spreading like the good news of the gospel – going from person
to person as we share the light.
If you think about it, the actual darkness in the room at
that moment is pretty minimal. There is a lot of ambient light around. The
projector alone gives off a lot of light even when we put up a dark slide. Darkness
is something we don’t deal with too much in our culture. Electric lights have
banished the dark, and these days we all have our own flashlights in our
pockets as part of our cell phones!
Darkness was different in Isaiah’s time. Small oil lamps gave
off some light, and perhaps they would have a fire burning sometimes, but on
the whole, darkness was only broken by the moon and stars – and if the moon had
not risen, or if it was a cloudy night, it was dark! His hearers
had experienced that kind of darkness.
He says to them, “The people who walked in darkness have seen
a great light; those dwelling in a land of deep darkness, on them has light
shone.”
God had given Isaiah a vision of the future. He’s writing
from the perspective of having seen what God would do as though God had already
done it. He writes in the past tense because when God commits to something, it
is as good as done.
But Isaiah wasn’t
talking about the need for better evening lighting or the absence of
illumination. He was talking about the spiritual darkness his people lived in.
He saw that their hearts were wandering from God, and they were worshipping
other gods. He is saying in this prophecy that God would break through the
darkness of sin, the darkness of false religion, and the darkness of death. God
would be a light for His people to reveal the truth, life, and salvation.
Spiritual darkness exists today, too. We might not bow down
to statues to worship them, but there are idols in our lives. Sometimes we give
our hearts to the ideologies of our political leaders, our economic systems,
and our credit reports. Our hearts wander from God, and we replace Him with
comforts, temporary pleasures, amusements, and diversions on our phones. We
seek the comforts of this world as if these things are the greatest good we can
ever experience. And instead of turning to God, we turn to technology, to A.I.,
and to the latest research, while rejecting the Creator’s design and abusing
the creation we are part of.
These are mighty tools, but they cannot solve our spiritual
crises, and they cannot dispel the darkness sin brings, breaking relationships
and causing oppression. Nor can they solve that lasting final problem which all
people face: death.
But Isaiah says to God, “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.”
There is real joy – and that joy is what God intends for us
in Christmas.
He continues, “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.” He is saying that God will break the yoke – that wooden beam that
connects two oxen together when they plow. For us, we are yoked – forcibly tied
to sin, death, and the devil – and God breaks that yoke by connecting us to
Jesus. Jesus absorbs the staff’s blows, for he is the one who was beaten before
He was crucified. Jesus removed the rod of the oppressor, because He was the
one who was unjustly killed by the powers of this world – killed in order to
put them to shame and defeat them.
Then there will be peace. “For every boot of the tramping
warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as
fuel for the fire.” All the evidence of the violence of our sin, the conflicts
in our relationships, the pain that we cause one another will be taken away by
Jesus.
And how does he do it? He begins by being born!
“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.”
Unto us a child is born. A savior was born for you! The child
in Bethlehem was no ordinary child. John says of him, “In him was life, and the
life was the light of humanity.” This baby is the Son of God, who, because God
so loved the world, was given so that whoever believes in Him might have life
in His name. He is the one who would grow up to say, “I am the light of the
world.” He casts out our darkness that we might walk in Him. Even when he was
born, angels appeared to shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone round about
them so that they were terrified; the light piercing the darkness, pointing
forward to what the child would do. “Unto you is born this day, in the city of
David, a … savior … he is Christ, the Lord.”
Jesus was born to confront the darkness of death on the
cross, to go into the deep shadow of the grave, and to shine glory to defeat it
all in His resurrection. And on the night he was born, His glory broke the
darkness of the night.
This birth has implications for our lives. If we have seen
the light of the one and only Son of the Father, who is full of grace and
truth, we should shun the darkness. The theological word for that is “repent,”
turn away from our sin to live in Christ. If we have seen Jesus’ glorious
salvation, we should bear that light to the world. The theological word for
that is “evangelism,” which means to share the good news that the light has
come! If Jesus’ light shines in our hearts, we should carry his joy to the
world. We might call this “conversion,” living our lives in such a way that
people see the love of God at work in and through us.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot
overcome it.” This is why Jesus was born, given unto us. This is why we sing
with joy and awe and wonder and peace. God, our savior, has come! So tonight we
celebrate that holy birth – unto us a child is born, unto us God’s son is given
– born and given to drive away the darkness by shining His glorious light of
salvation upon us. Amen.
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