Arise, shine, for
your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold,
darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord
will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.
And nations shall
come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Isa 60:1-3 ESV
The coming
Christ has astounding implications!
Sin
entered the world with Adam and Eve, affecting not only people but all
creation. Over the centuries, the effects of that original sin grew darker and
deeper. Genesis traces that
progression.. Their oldest son--Cain--murdered their second son--Abel. Cain's great-great-great grandson, Lamech,
not only killed a man but bragged about it. By the time of Noah, things had
become so bad, that God had to destroy mankind and start over with just eight
people. By the time of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, God had to scatter people
abroad and confuse their languages so that sin could be contained. It continued
to thicken and darken year after year. The thicker sin became, the more it
obscured the light of God.
God
promised Abraham that this darkness would not last forever. One day He
would bless the whole world through
Abraham's descendants. It would be two thousand years later that the world
would see that blessing.
Fourteen
hundred years later in the time of Isaiah,
the world had already seen several evil empires built on pride,
idolatry, greed, and oppression. Isaiah had every reason to believe sin would
destroy everything good and holy that was left on earth.
But the
dawn was already approaching. God was even then working to bring deliverance to
the world.
Jesus was
the light Isaiah predicted On the cross
Jesus paid the penalty for every sin ever done--for Cain and Lamech, for Noah's
children, for Nimrod, even the builders of the Tower of Babel. He paid for the
sins of all the evil empires--the Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians, and even
for the sins of the Romans soldiers who nailed Christ to the cross.
Christ's
birth was not the end of darkness, but it was the beginning of the end. Gradually the glory of Christ continues to
spread throughout the world until representatives of all people will rise up
and call him Lord.
Sin hasn't
left the earth yet. But now there is a light that shows us how to resist it,
how to reverse it, and how to find forgiveness
when we fail
On the
Cross, Jesus said to his executioners "Father forgive them." He
prayed for the souls of the very people who killed him. Jesus still seeks forgiveness and
reconciliation with the very people who terrorize His people. He offers the
forgiveness to the Arab terrorists and to the militant atheists, as He does to
struggling Christians who still fight losing battles with temptation.
One day
the light of God will cover the entire earth as dawn covers the land each
morning. But until that day, we have Christmas. We have the Bible, We have the
Holy Spirit to point us in the direction of the light.
If you are
struggling today with dreams unfulfilled, questions unanswered, temptations
unconquered and resentments unforgiven, do not despair. The light has already come. Rejoice, morning is already upon you.
"Thank
you, Father, that the light has come into my life and into my world. I may not
see it, but it is there. Give me eyes to
see that my struggles are not in vain, my sins are forgiven, and my Savior is already with me. In Jesus' name,
Amen."
