Light out of darkness (Isa 9:2; John 8:12)

When I was a child, on Advent Sunday evenings, we turned off all the lights in the living room and just had the advent wreath candles on.[1] We sang carols and ended the time in prayer as we waited for Christmas. With each week, the light grew greater inside even as the northern hemisphere winter meant shorter daylight hours and longer darkness. Those times spoke of the growing light that was coming into a dark world with the birth of Jesus Christ. While this imagery is beautiful, what does it really mean?

In Isaiah’s time, Israel too was in darkness. It was a darkness of judgment (Isa 8:22), of disobedience and spiritual disorientation (Isa 8:19, 21). The people were confused. The Assyrian conquest meant for many a loss of their property and livelihoods and being forced to live in a foreign land. For others it involved the loss of loved ones or their very lives. Their world was turned upside down and they were stuck. What was God doing? Was this punishment? An accident of fate? Was God powerless to save? Those who remained in the land looked at the devastation of crops through war and experienced subsequent famine. Hungry and enraged, they turned their anger on God. How could a loving God hurt them so? Why? And why them? If they looked for answers, they searched for information through mediums and the dead rather than sought a relationship with the living God through His Word in God’s law and the testimony of the prophets (Isa 8:20).

This year for many has been a particularly dark time and we may have experienced similar confusion and questions with Covid as Israel had done in their situation. Yet in our reading, God promises light and a few verses down we discover the cause: the birth of a child, a Davidic descendant who will establish a kingdom of justice, peace and truth (Isa 9:6-7). The historic circumstances for the prophetic hope are hazy and there may have been a partial fulfilment in some godly king nearer to Isaiah’s time, but the claims in the prophecy are so extravagant that readers would have instinctively looked with hope to a more distant future. With Christian hindsight, we see Jesus Christ in the description of the son, though some of the promises in the prophecy still await completion. Nevertheless, with Jesus’ first coming, Light has entered the world (John 1:4-5, 9).

Darkness is a form of blindness; we have eyes but cannot see. God’s light reveals the landscape of our lives, shows us where we are and what we have done. Jesus says that some will not want to come into the light because it exposes their deeds (John 3:20). However, if we allow God’s light to shine into our lives, we can recognise our self-deception and moral-spiritual confusion for what it is. Facing our inner reality can be painful but also freeing. With God we do not have to pretend and when we acknowledge our sins, our blindness and our attempts to make ourselves look better than we are, we can find forgiveness and reconciliation with God. Moreover, learning about the truth also means a recognition of God’s amazing love that is willing to start over with us, to give His only begotten Son so that we might have eternal life (John 3:16-18).

As we prepare for Christmas and remember that in Jesus light has come into the world, how do we respond? Are we willing to come to the Light and walk in it? This year has shaken many of us out of our routines and we are more likely to ask the deeper questions and search for answers. Let us turn to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to shine His light into our lives, confess our sins and let Him guide our steps. If we have been walking faithfully with the Lord, may there be the joy of knowing God’s presence and peace with us as we live life fully for Him and with Him (John 8:12).

[1] In many European countries, including Hungary, the Christmas tree is not put up until 24^th December.

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