The Light in the Darkness • Isaiah 9:1-3; John 1:1-9
By Paula Smith
“Wake up, Paula! Gotta get ready for school!” Mama would say.
And… click – there goes the light – the BRIGHT light!
Ohhhh… I would grump and complain about the light and put my head under the covers trying to get my eyes adjusted. Some days it would be Daddy who would come into the dark room and shake my shoulder and say, “Wake up, Paula! Gotta get ready for school!” and he too would turn on the light as he walked out my bedroom door.
Whether it was Mama or Daddy who awoke me, it took time for my eyes to adjust from darkness to the light.
“The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it and is unreceptive to it” (John 1:5 Amplified).
Think about this spiritually. We get different reactions from people being introduced to Jesus, the Light of the world. Some people run. Some people question it. Some people hide. Some people get mad. We must give people time to adjust to the light.
Let’s look at the context of this, another prophecy that points us to Jesus. Isaiah was writing during a very dark, tumultuous time. A couple of chapters before this we learn that the armies of Israel and Syria were threatening Judah.
Instead of trusting in God, King Ahaz of Judah turned to Assyria for help. Because King Ahaz did not trust God, Isaiah warned that He would use Assyria to punish Judah. He said that the people of Judah would “have no light of dawn” and be “thrust into utter darkness” (Isaiah 8:20, 22) — and so they were.
The people have been in deep spiritual darkness. Isaiah pronounces judgement upon them. Just when they think all is lost they hear, “BUT there will be no more gloom…” (Isaiah 9:1). God loved them too much to leave them there. He would bring them “a great light” starting from Zebulun and Naphtali. These were lands in northern Israel that had been ravaged by the Assyrians. Isaiah prophesied of a future time when “Galilee of the nations” (or Gentiles) would be honored. (Isaiah 9:1-3).
What more wonderful news for the people “living in the land of the shadow of death,” than that a “great light” had dawned! (Isaiah 9:2). Yes! 700 years later this prophecy is fulfilled when Jesus, the Light of the world, came into Galilee and did much of His public ministry there and in God’s mercy, this Great Light extended beyond Judah.
Isaiah wrote later that the Lord’s chosen servant will be “a light for the Gentiles” (Isaiah 42:6) to bring “salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).
On a trip to a Middle Eastern country, the “representative” working with us admonished us, “Go sight see and pray as you go. The people are not accustomed to having the Holy Spirit walk among them.” What an impact that made on me!
Jesus, the Light of the world — “The True Light that gives light to every man was coming into the world (John 1:9) said, “You are the light of the world…” (Matthew 5:14). How well John said this in his other book of 1 John (1:5-7 Amplified):
“This is the message (of God’s promised revelation) which we have heard from Him and now announce to you, that God is Light (He is holy, His message is truthful, He is perfect in righteousness), and in Him there is no darkness at all (no sin, no wickedness, no imperfection). If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness (of sin), we lie and do not practice the truth; But if we (really) walk in the Light (that is, live each and every day in conformity with the precepts of God), as He Himself is in the Light, we have (true, unbroken) fellowship with one another (He with us, and we with Him), and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (by erasing the stain of sin, keeping us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations).”
Is the True Light shining through you to brighten the darkness in your part of the world?
Smith is a member of Ridgecrest Church, Madison. She may be contacted at pgrace56@hotmail.com.
