| 2006 | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| 2008 | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| 2009 | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| 2010 | January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you" (Isa 60:1), declares God by way of His Old Testament prophet Isaiah. What is the opposite of arise? Is it not being downfallen? And the opposite of shine, before the light which is God's glory rises? Is it not darkness? Downfallenness and darkness it is!
Isaiah continues, "See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness the peoples" (v 2a) bearing them down. But this is no natural darkness, as in the absence of natural light. This is unnatural darkness, as in the presence of fallen humankind, in the midst of sin and the absence of God and His glory, driven from the scene by sinful man's downfallenness.
This is an absence which definitely does not make the heart grow fonder! And the darklings are God's own people, the Israelites, whereby the spiritually dead consult the dead on behalf of the so-called living instead of inquiring of their God, the Lord of the living and the dead; whereby their seers see visions of their own deluded hearts and their mediums are go-betweens for devils; their spiritists spirited away by unclean spirits.
Their wizards peep and their soothsayers mutter and the blind lead the blind and both fall in the ditch, bewitched, not because God wouldn't guide and enlighten them. He would. Not because they didn't have His light. They did. But because they rejected God's light-bearers, His prophets, and shunned God's light, both God and His Word.
And what is God's solution for this dark dissolution? "To the law and to the testimony!" (Isa 8:20a). In other words, back to the source; back to God's Word; back, back, back to God. Backtrack if necessary. Being converted, repent! Availing yourself of the oil of faith, free flowing, trim your wick lest your lamp sputter and go out and you, sputtering and spitting like a dying ember, be thrust into outer darkness and snuffed out. To the law and to the testimony!
And what is the alternative to this about-face, this 180 degree turnabout? "If they do not speak according to this word", if they go on speaking their own demonic mind, "they have no light of dawn" (v 20b), only the spiritual darkness of an endless midnight. "Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land", the blind leading the blind.
"When they are famished," dying of hunger and thirst, "they will become enraged and, looking upward," covered with thick darkness and borne down by their sin, impenitent, they "will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom. And they will be thrust into utter darkness" (vv 21-22).
Turnabout is fair play! The only alternative to God and His enlightening Word and the about-face, the 180 degree turnaround, the conversion and repentance God works by this ulterior means, is to be completely downfallen in deepest darkness indeed!
They say it's always darkest just before the dawn. Notwithstanding the fact that "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear" (Isa 59:1), stubborn benighted souls darkened by unrepented sin nonetheless are too blind to see God's salvation and too dumbed down by lack of contrition and unbelief, too mute to cry out.
Just before the dawn breaks in Isaiah 60, chapter 59 shows just how dark this darkness can be. This is its cause. "Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. . . .No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil" (vv 2, 4).
Consequently, "their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands" (v 6b). And here are the regressive degrees of darkness, the gloom and doom, growing darker and darker. "Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood" (v 7a). And like Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's play, "Out damned spot!", their hands are stained with it.
And no amount of hand-wringing or hand-washing will rid them of the guilt. And here is the fountainhead. "Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know. There is no justice in their paths" (vv 7b-8a), so far off the mark have they swerved, so lost are they, so crooked have they grown.
This is the upshot. "So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light. But all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows" (v 9). What else would you expect, having ventured so far from the path of peace, having veered so sharply out of the right-a-way straight into oncoming traffic, smack dab into a head-on collision and into the shadow land of death, death's dark vale?
Blind guides, the blind leading the blind, both end up in the ditch without the aid of a ditch witch or a dirt devil. Is this not what it's like in our land in this hour of crisis, this land of deep darkness, this crisis of faith and honesty, this moment of truth?
Day is breaking! "For our offenses are many in your sight," O Lord, "and our sins testify against us." Dawn is breaking through! "Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the Lord", not just against unknowing stockholders left in the dark, "turning our backs on our God", not merely abandoning wishful thinking mortgage holders left in the lurch or betraying the confidence of financially strapped home-owners left holding the bag, "fomenting oppression" and maybe even a taxpayer revolt, "uttering lies our hearts have conceived" (vv 12-13).
And there isn't a bailout big enough to bail us out of this deluge or enough tax dollars to plug the leak of our sinking ship. And here is the aftermath, the bitter fruit. "So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance. Truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey" (vv 14-15a).
This is the moment of reckoning. The darkness which is darkest just before dawn is breaking. For it is daybreak! "The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So his own arm worked salvation for him".
Thank God for His strong-arm tactics! "And his own righteousness sustained him" (vv 15b-16). Thank God, God takes matters into His own almighty hands and, outfitted with His divine attributes whereby "He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head" (v 17a) and, taking the Sword of the Spirit, His invincible Word, He carries the day. For this is the Day of the Lord!
This is a brand new day. And it is daybreak. "From the west, men will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere his glory. 'The Redeemer will come. . .to those. . .who repent of their sins,' declares the Lord" (vv 19a-20).
This Redeemer, God's own righteousness, justice and salvation in the flesh, is the Glory of the Lord who, rising upon us, enables us who are downfallen in the shadow land of death, covered with and borne down by the thick darkness of our sin, to rise and shine, shorn of our heavy burden, like a filthy fleece, by our Shepherd who Himself shoulders our unwieldy load.
Truly this is the Salvation which God has prepared before the face of all people, as St. Simeon and we confess in the Nunc Dimittis. This is the Light that lightens the Gentiles, the Glory of God's people Israel, the Light and the Life of the world, the Savior of all mankind.
Arise, shine, for your Light is come, and the Glory of the Lord rises upon you. Indeed, "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" (Isa 9:2). Shed of the deep darkness of sin and death, thus lightened, you lambs of God, rise and shine!
The star those first Gentiles, representative of all Gentiles, those erstwhile sages, God's star witnesses, followed, was not that Light but a herald of Him and His Word, their guiding Light and their Guidepost, which they believed and in which they trusted, having received Him as their God and King, alien Gentiles though they were--having been received by Him in the first place, aliens no longer!
"Where is he who is born king of the Jews?" Where indeed! Here, there, and everywhere. Where else? "We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him" (Mt 2:2). And having obtained Him and His gifts of grace, His righteousness and salvation and the membership in His kingdom such a legacy entails, for such membership has its privileges, "They bowed down and worshiped him.
"Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts--gold, frankincense and myrrh" (v 11), service and gifts fit for such a King! In the verses prior to Ephesians 3, St. Paul alludes to this journey from afar by those far off from the Lord in search of Him, their highly sought-after God.
And for us Gentiles, it is a journey from afar for, by nature, we are far off, even if we live next door. "Remember that at that time", before this Light of the world dawned on us, in that faraway shadow land of sin and death, "You were separate from Christ," aliens of His mercy, "excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12).
How's that for downfallenness and darkness, gloom and doom, death and damnation! "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ" (v 13), like the Wise Men who came from afar, drawn, like a pack of bloodhounds, by that precious scent foreshadowed in Jesus' natal star, far and away the best thing that ever happened to them or to us.
"For he himself is our peace, who has made" the many, indeed, all peoples "one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh" the enmity, that is, "the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man" out of the many, "thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile [all] of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
"He came and preached peace to you who", like those aliens of old, the Magi, "were far away and peace to those", like the Jews who might as well have been far off, distanced by their sin, their stubborn unbelief, their hardness of heart. "For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
"Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets", dare I say it? I do! Built to last, "with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone" (vv 19-20). There, I said it!
This is the epiphany or theophany, the mystery of Christ, "which was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus" (3:5-6).
This is the Epiphany of Jesus Christ, God in man made manifest. The inbreaking of this Light is indeed universal and cosmic. God's intent, in making known the mystery, "was that now, through the church", this union and communion of all peoples in the one person of Christ, "the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
"In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence" (vv 10-12), we who are aliens by nature, separated from Him by our sin, now reconciled through the blood of His Son. Rise and shine, for our Light is come! Amen.
- Pastor Erickson