Send The Light!

Isaiah 60:1-6, 9

For those who follow the Liturgical calendar, tomorrow marks the Feast of Epiphany.  This Christian holy day not only celebrates when the magi came to worship the Christ Child, but also, and very importantly, the physical manifestation of Jesus the Messiah to the Gentiles.  In the Old Testament times, Yahweh had specifically revealed Himself to the Jewish people. They were to be His lights and messengers to the rest of the world. Now, through Jesus, the door has been thrown wide open for the Gentiles.  Now, both Jew and Gentile can come directly to the Father, through Jesus, His Son. The magi who came to worship the infant Jesus were the first Gentiles to see His Light.

In our passage today from the Prophet Isaiah, we read that the people of the world are in a deep and great darkness.  However, a light arises from the Lord. He brings a light to those who dwell in darkness. At the time of Isaiah, several centuries before the birth of Jesus, the world was in darkness.  They were in moral darkness and spiritual darkness. The Gentile world had no spiritual light, worshipping all sorts of idols. The Jewish people had the Word of God, but only a remnant chose to follow it.  So many of them were in just as much spiritual and moral darkness as their Gentile neighbors. The coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, brought light, both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.

With the exception of when one wants to sleep, or when looking at stars at night through a telescope, most people do not like to be in the dark.  Few mentally healthy people would choose to sit in the dark for hours at a time. Instead, we turn on a light. If one gets lost out in a rural area at night, we’re told to look for a light in the distance, and then go towards it.  Frequently in Scriptures darkness and night are synonymous with sin and evil. To be living in darkness is to be living with sin in one’s life, to be apart from God and His truth and righteousness.

Just as in the physical world we do not need to sit in darkness, and can turn on a light to bring brightness to a room, we do not need to remain in spiritual and moral darkness either.  God sent a light into the world in the Person of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Reading His Words in the Gospels, and by accepting and following the message He brought, we can have light to cast out the darkness in our souls.

There is just as much darkness in the world today as there was in Isaiah’s day.  2700 years later, things have not changed that much. My family and I frequently watch the evening news, and we see that darkness still covers the land.  Sin and evil are still rampant. God has given us the Light, in and through His Son, Jesus. Why do people prefer to remain in the dark? We have to choose to come to the Light.

This is where us believers have to step in.  We have the Light. We need to share it throughout the world.  In the verses from the passage in Isaiah, some strange sounding places were named, places like Midian, Ephah, Tarshish.  Those were far-off foreign countries in Isaiah’s day. Tarshish was present day Spain and the Straits of Gibraltar. That was the fringes of the known world at that time, about as far away as one could go.  Yet Isaiah said that the Light God was giving would stretch to all of these places. God wanted His message, His Light, to go forth everywhere. That has not changed today.

When people step out of the darkness of sin, and into the Light of Jesus, they will, as Isaiah says, become radiant, and their hearts swell with joy (vs. 5).  They shall proclaim the praises of the Lord (vs. 6). We have a responsibility to spread the good news of Jesus to the far fringes of the world, to “bring sons from afar” (vs. 9), as Isaiah said.  Too many people are living in darkness. We see it with every news story we hear. As the old Gospel hymn says, we need to “Send the Light!”