Light for a World of Gloom (Isaiah 9:1-7)

I think there must be something wrong with me.

Said Charlie Brown's mind is Christmas is coming, says Charlie.

But I'm not happy.

I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel.

After all, Charlie Brown's friends are singing, Christmas time is here.

Happiness and cheer.

Charlie Brown knows what we intuitively know.

Christmas time is a time for celebration.

It's a time for joy, levity, happiness.

But Charlie Brown feels lost in gloom.

Feels a little despondent.

Maybe he feels a little miserable.

Maybe we know that feeling for ourselves.

We know what it's like to feel gloomy, to feel enveloped as in a cloud of darkness.

It's hard to avoid.

Coming through 2020, perhaps we're looking back on the year and about where we were a year ago.

Things were quite different, I imagine.

Quite different for all of us.

It's hard to go through 2020.

It's hard to go through a pandemic and not feel despondent, feel a little lost, feel confronted with the reality of misery and gloom.

We feel gloomy.

Even in the midst of 2020, pandemic's not the only thing we faced, is it?

We've seen the headlines of injustice, fear, uncertainty, hostilities, famine.

Perhaps we ourselves have walked through personal tragedy.

Perhaps we're still experiencing the outworking of that.

We walked together as a parish, or we walked as a family.

We feel gloom.

We know what it's like to feel enveloped, as it is by darkness, despondency.

And we feel lost.

We don't know the way out.

Christmas time is here, but I don't feel happy.

I feel gloom.

Maybe that's how we feel tonight.

Friends, Christmas is good news for a gloomy world.

We love Christmas.

Love sharing Christmas cards.

We love the images of cute little snugly baby Jesus with rosy pink cheeks and everything else.

Sometimes we miss the world into which Jesus was born.

World of gloom.

World enveloped by darkness, of hopelessness.

Here comes a singular light, as it is, of grace.

Isaiah knows what gloom is like.

We've been journeying with Isaiah through the season of Advent.

Isaiah is a prophet that God is commissioned to speak his word to his people.

He lived about eight centuries or so before Christ.

In Isaiah's time, God's people are.

Feeling despondent, wayward.

They have the threat of foreign nations coming to invade them.

They're on the verge of exile from their homeland, the land that God promised them.

They feel enveloped.

They feel gloomy.

And yet Isaiah comes with a message to call people to walk not in gloom, but to walk in the light of the Lord.

That's what we saw on the first week of Advent.

That's Isaiah's message.

Walk in the light of the Lord.

So Isaiah speaks comfort in our reading in chapter 9.

A comfort for a gloomy people.

He says this, chapter 9, verse 1, there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish.

He's talking about God's people, Israel.

There will be no gloom.

Now Isaiah is using a past tense here, but he's using it prophetically.

You ever ask someone to do something, and their response to you is, well, it's done.

Done.

There's part of me that's like, it's not done.

I just asked you to do it, right?

Well, we know what's being said there is this is so certain, it is so certain that this will be accomplished, we can talk about it past tense.

Isaiah is speaking prophetically.

He says there's going to be a day where there's no more gloom for God's people who are in anguish, who are lost, who are despondent.

We can talk about it with such certainty, we can talk in the past tense.

That day is coming.

They're lost in the gloom of despondency, but there's a future hope, and the hope is this: that the people who've walked in darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone.

God's people are lost in despondency and darkness, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Have you heard that phrase lately?

I keep hearing that phrase.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

That light is hope.

Yes, we got a ways left in the tunnel, but there's a light.

That's what Isaiah is saying here.

He's saying there's a light.

And we can be so certain that that light is coming, we can talk about it as if it's already here.

That's the kind of comfort we can bring into darkness, into our despondency.

Yet we are enveloped by gloom.

God's light will bring hope and peace and joy and love.

How is this going to happen becomes the question.

God's people might ask, how is that going to be realized?

Sometimes I think this verse is so familiar to us.

We lose the surprise.

This is a delightful surprise.

How is this gloom going to be enlightened?

Foreign to us, a child is born, Isaiah says, To us, a son is given.

Human children are born every day.

That's probably not a shock to a reader to hear a child is going to be born, but this child is a gift.

To us, a son is given.

This is a divine gift.

This is a remarkable child.

Of this child, his government, all the government will be upon his shoulder.

His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

For the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end.

No end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, he will establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth, forevermore.

See, I've heard that phrase more than once.

There's a light at the end of the tunnel.

We seem to come out of that tunnel and find ourselves in another one.

Do you ever find that?

Isaiah is saying the great light is coming.

The greatest light will banish the greatest darkness.

There will be no end to this peace.

The world will be set right.

The world will be renewed.

The world will be restored.

Everything will be as it should be.

For to us a child is born.

To us a son is given.

This divine gift is going to carry all authority and rule with wisdom, benevolence, and peace.

Wonderful counselor is his name.

I have to think the opposite of gloom is wonder.

And this child is full of it.

This child calls forth wonder and awe from us, from God's people.

And this child is going to rescue them, bring them out of their lostness, their despondency, their gloom.

Mighty God he will be called.

So I gotta think the audience, Isaiah's readers, are thinking, so who is this child?

We gotta know.

We gotta know who's going to rescue us.

There's a few candidates, I suppose, through Isaiah.

Different kings come onto the scene and come off the scene, but each and every one falls short.

None of these candidates seem to deliver on this kingdom of unending peace, of flourishing.

Who is this child?

We want to know too.

Here in 2020, at New Song, we want to know.

What's the light at the end of the tunnel?

Who's coming to rescue us?

See, we find ourselves lost, despondent, miserable, gloomy.

We've lost the light.

And apart from grace, we'll wander as sheep who've gone astray, lost in sin, lost on our own.

But John wants us to know there's good news.

That light that Isaiah said is coming for us.

So certainly we can talk about it in the past tense.

John knows for himself, and he wants his readers to know this light for themselves too.

John 1, verse 5.

John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness, the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light, verse 9, which gives light to everyone, is coming into the world.

This child, this divine gift, this light that will disrupt and displace all darkness.

This light has come into the world.

This light is the word.

This light is the word made flesh, who dwelt among us.

See, God gave Isaiah his word to speak to God's people.

This is God's word himself, taking on our humanity, coming to us as the word, to draw us to the Father.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Is there anything more wonderful than that?

The eternal word became human.

And the healing of our gloom, the gloom in which humanity is lost, begins right here at the manger.

Begins with this light.

This beautiful baby boy whose face is beaming at his mother.

This is the light that will rescue humanity from its gloom, from its lostness, from its despondency, from its sin.

This is the light that will rescue you.

This is the light that will rescue me.

The healing of our gloom begins at the manger, it culminates in the cross, where our Lord Jesus takes upon himself the very condition of our lost and fallen humanity.

Where he takes upon himself the wrath of the Father.

Where he takes upon himself the gloom of a humanity lost in sin and puts it to death.

And does away with it.

He buries darkness, as it were, forever.

But a light shines on the third day, in his resurrection.

We have hope for new life, full of grace and truth.

For from his fullness we've received grace upon grace, John writes, through Jesus Christ, he is made the Father known.

We know the truth and light and power of the Father in our Lord Jesus.

In the manger, in the cross, in the empty tomb, on the throne on which he sits right now at the Father's right hand, reigning in a kingdom of everlasting peace, which we believe with such certainty we can talk about it as though it is already here.

It's already not yet.

The kingdom of our Lord's on earth as it is in heaven.

So perhaps we find ourselves in gloom tonight.

We consider the family members we won't get to embrace.

We think of those Christmas parties we would have loved to celebrate.

We think about the road ahead.

To feel a little lost, despondent, unhappy.

That's okay.

But what we have is the hope of a light that will dispel all darkness.

What we have is the hope of a light breaking into our darkness and the assurance of knowing that the world will be made right.

We can rest assured of that.

On our darkest day, on our darkest night, we know that the light has come.

We can become children of the light when we put our faith, our trust in Jesus, when we say, I want to walk in the light, because he is the light.

And we know the Father's love and his acceptance and his care.

Friends, if you don't know this light for yourself, I pray that you'd come to the light.

Come to know Jesus.

Come to know your Savior, whose birth we remember, who is the light that dispels our gloom, who rescues us.

See, at the height of his despondency, his gloom, when the Christmas pageant just isn't working out the way he thought it was, Charlie Brown cries out, Is there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?

And it's Linus who stands up.

And he says, This, sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.

And he begins by reading Luke's gospel.

In the same region, there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.

That will be for all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Friends, Christmas is good news for a gloomy world.

At the manger, the light that rescues us from our gloomy darkness has come into the world.

Oh come, let us adore him.