Light in the darkness – Immanuel

Life was hopeless … literally without hope. It was as if they were under a great weight – a breath-of-life-extinguishing darkness.

That was how the people of Israel felt around the time that Isaiah prophesied almost three millennia ago. Their northern enemy was oppressing them and threatening to take over their land. It was just a matter of time before they succeeded. The potential ally to the south would eventually prove inadequate too.

Their land … the land of God’s own people … the promised land … was soon to be stripped away. Almighty God, the One and Only Jehovah, would do nothing to stop the enemy, for he was angry. They were his people, yet they put their trust elsewhere. His was a righteous, zealous jealousy.

Right smack bang in the middle of some magnificent Christmas prophecies which we sing and print on cards today (sections of Isaiah 7 and 9), come these chilling words in Isaiah 8:

Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. They they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

Isaiah 8:21-22

Pinpricks of light

Isaiah 8 is a dark and gloomy chapter. And yet, throughout, flecks of hope – Christmas hope – prick the inky blackness.

With imagery of torrential flooding and bloody war, Isaiah depicts God as being not absent, but present. God was there in the very midst of the horror. (See Isaiah 8 verses 8 and 10).

The prophet calls on his listeners to fear the LORD Almighty (verses 12-15). In the thick of judgement, he describes God as a sanctuary, even though in almost the same breath he also describes him as a stone that makes men stumble and a rock that makes them fall. This ‘stumbling stone’ imagery harked back to King David’s prophecy of Psalm 118:22-23 and would be directly applied to Jesus some eight centuries later. (Check out Matthew 21:42-44 and 1 Peter 2:4-8.)

And then, in the darkness, Isaiah declared his faith. He declared not only his own faith but that of the children whose very names were, in themselves, prophecy (see Isaiah 7:3 and 8:3)

Bind up the testimony
and seal up the law among my disciples.
I will wait for the LORD,
who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.

Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 8:16-18

The final section of Isaiah 8 is somewhat of a mystery to Westerners like myself who barely understand the spirit world, though likely not to people whose daily lives revolve around appeasing the spirit world. In it, Isaiah spoke of the blackness of mediums, spiritists and those they consult (Isaiah 8:19-20). They have ‘no light of dawn,’ he stated. Then he finished with the desperate and distressing verses quoted earlier, in which humans and spirits were ‘thrust into utter darkness’.

Then and now

That was then. This is now. 2020 … a year of dismay.

I watched an hour of world news on TV the other day. War in the Middle East, pillage in Africa, plague in Europe and the Americas, fractured families fleeing violence and oppression all over the world, chaos at all levels of society … the only relief was the sports report at the end.

Tonight, as I edited this piece, I switched on the TV for ‘a break’. On a programme which is usually a light-hearted look at current affairs, I heard the story of a serial murderer. The reporter focused particularly on the pain of those whose lives were destroyed by him either directly or indirectly. At the end of the segment, of course, the television station broadcast telephone numbers for crisis help because the segment may well have stirred up memories of some viewers’ own horror stories.

Where is God in our broken and hurting world?

Isaiah 8 speaks to us today just as it did to the Israelites back then. In the chaos, God is present. Immanuel – God with us. Trust in him and wait. Trust and wait…….

Nevertheless….

Throughout 2020, our ‘annus horribulus’ (as the Queen might say), we have been encouraged ‘to pivot’. Thank God, quite literally, for a welcome ‘pivot’ in the book of Isaiah, initiated not by us through any cleverness or strength of character but by God himself. The first word in Isaiah 9 is a glorious transition word: ‘nevertheless’.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress….

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Isaiah 9:1a, 2

In Isaiah 9, we are finally getting back into Christmas-card-quotable verses. This chapter contains magnificent words of hope that have been sung in multiple languages throughout the centuries.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders,
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

Then and now

When Isaiah spoke this prophecy, the people were living in fear and with a sense of hopelessness. Yet even in the midst of the darkness, they were told to trust and to wait.

Seven centuries later, after cycles of rebellion, exile, repentance and return of remnants, light blazed. Brilliance broke into darkness in a literal way that first Christmas with an angelic choir over Israel and a guiding star over a foreign land.

The first Christmas there in Israel has been and gone. Today we hang brightly coloured lights around our houses, over our trees and occasionally even on our clothing in celebration of that light.

Yet in another sense, our Saviour has not yet completely dispelled the darkness. Just switch on the TV and you will see what I mean. As Christians, indwelt with God’s Spirit, we radiate light in a dark and dreary world. The apostle Paul urged his readers to imitate Jesus’ life and in so doing, we would be “… children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…..” (Philippians 2:15b)

A city of light

Jesus was born. The prophecy was fulfilled.

And yet we still live in a dark world. We sparkle like stars, yes, but darkness has not yet been fully dispelled. Disease, dismay and death surround us. Can we trust and wait, like Isaiah did back in Israel in the dark and hopeless days of the eighth century BC? Can we trust and wait on God as the early Christians did in the oppressive Roman world of the first century?

Consider the vision that the early church leader John was given. It’s purpose was to provide hope and to encourage perseverance of battered and bruised believers. It is as relevant to us now as it was to the early Christians back then. John wrote:

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

Revelation 21:22-23

Immanuel – God with us

Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled. God was with those Israelites even in their difficult days. Judgement was imminent, but in the judgement, mercy was offered. Immanuel – God with us.

Fast forward 750 years (more or less). Jesus, Immanuel, the Light of the World, was born. The darkness tried to put out the light, but the light prevailed for it was more powerful than the darkness. (See Matthew 4:12-17, John 1:5, 3:19-21, John 8:12, John 12:35-36.)

As God’s people, united with Jesus himself, we also shine in the darkness. (See 2 Corinthians 4:6, Ephesians 5:8, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 John 1:5-7.)

God is with us in our difficult days. Immanuel.

Jesus will return in power and glory. Death will be defeated once and for all, along with decay, disease, despair and darkness. Immanuel.

Right now, though, our world is still dark. Nevertheless, Almighty God has intervened decisively and continues to intervene. Immanuel.

At the end of a year the like of which we wish we may never have to endure again, may we shine brightly for Jesus. For he, the light of the world, has come. Immanuel.

And so we trust and wait … and shine. Immanuel.

Happy Christmas. Immanuel.