Isaiah 8: 16-22
Theme: Sin
THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTMAS
Thanksgiving morning we had the TV on one of the morning news shows. They interviewed a man who had lost his sight when his daughter was just 2 years old. Recently he had an operation and was able to see his daughter who was now 10 years old. There was great relish in his voice as he tried to describe the sheer joy of seeing his two daughters, one for the first time! Words failed him as he tried to describe their beauty. He stumbled for words as he shared his thankfulness and then would inject a praise to God for his sight. One of the great milestones came when he drove a car again for the fist time since he regained his sight. They were all nervous, but he made it with no trouble. No doubt, this man’s experience gave him a unique perspective on darkness.
We all know that darkness is a metaphor for the sinful condition of the human soul. I wish I could stand here and tell you that the state of darkness is not natural to us but I can’t. I preached two weeks ago from Genesis 3 and there we find that man fell as a result of Adam’s sin and that sinfulness is our nature. Left to ourselves, we seek darkness. It is our nature.
I got an eye examination the other day. I know that my vision is not good and in fact, it is getting worse. I can’t see the chart, much less the big "E" on the first line. Without corrective lenses, I am not just impaired, I am non functional. I could not walk far, I could not cook or find something to eat. I would be a danger to even get in the car much less drive without correction. It is the nature of my eyes to have poor vision and without professional’s correction, I would be blind. It is the nature of all of us to be spiritually blind. And like my eyes, as time passes, our darkness gets progressively worse. We do not grow wiser from our experience. We cannot educate ourselves out of our darkness. It is a consuming darkness that swallows men and women, nations and states and entire worlds. Our world is consumed with darkness.
It was also a dark time in which Isaiah lived. The people of God had capitulated to the darkness. Darkness brings its on judgment and time was running out for Israel and for Judah. There was political intrigue going on as in our day. There were power struggles and confusion. We should not be surprised when spiritual darkness descends upon us. How long can we say that moral issues don’t matter and not reap the whirlwind of judgment? Sex has become an athletic event and the sacred honor of marriage is laughed at. We cannot tell the truth from a lie and often engage in lying more easily than we tell the truth. We cheat and steal. Yet we are surprised that God would bring judgment on us? How can we live in sin and question God’s judgment? It is the ultimate darkness.
God warned Isaiah not to fall into the same trap as the people had done. They saw conspiracies and treachery everywhere but in their own heart. And they feared everyone and everything except their God. But it was their God who would become their stumbling block.
God commands Isaiah to bid up the testimony and seal up the law. He was to make sure that he delivered God’s word to God’s people just as he was instructed. There was no other word to be preached. Isaiah acknowledged that God has hidden his face from his people. To hide the face meant that God no longer looked favorably upon them, His light was no longer among them.
Isaiah pledged his faithfulness to God. Both he and his sons were given as signs and wonders to Israel, as a witness to them on behalf of God. Isaiah’s own name meant God saves. His son’s name, "Maher-shalal-hash-baz," "Swift is the booty and speedy is the prey," was a witness to the impending judgment that would over run them.
Contrasted with Isaiah, the people were not turning to God in faith. Their darkness was too great. They turned to mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter and who consult the dead. They were turning to the occult, to what we might call today new age religions which are nothing more than old age abominations. Their hearts were so dark that they had no inclination to turn to God! Isaiah said, should they not be consulting the living God, instead they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
Isaiah called for a return to the standard by which their spiritual lives were to be measured. "To the Law and to the Testimony!" They were called to the measure of the Word of God. Their debased attitudes or ideas of fairness were not the proper measure. The measure was not their subjective feelings. Scripture alone is the measure of the soul and of right and wrong. Their whole lives were contrary to the God who had revealed himself in mighty acts and through the prophets. If they did not speak according to the Word of God, it was because they have no dawn! Hear the futility in those words, they have no dawn, no morning, no new day. The light of God is not in them and without that light there is not one shred of hope.
When we are in such a condition that we have no dawn, no hope, all of our choices will drive us deeper into our darkness. Passing through the land, we will be hard pressed and famished. I do not believe that Isaiah is referring to food and economic hard times. He is talking about the emptiness of the God-starved soul. It reminds us of the words of the prophet Amos who said, ‘"Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord God, When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the LORD."’ Where there is a famine of the Word, they will curse their king and their God. They find no answer in their demanding look to God and they find no answer as they seek secular solutions. The result is that they are driven away into darkness, into the ever darkening gloom of night. Like those who live above the arctic circle, there is never-ending darkness. But this darkness is a darkness of the soul. Their own darkness has plunged them further and further into gloom, spiritual famine, and despair.
What a horrible message it must have been for Isaiah to deliver to his own people! And what a terrible lesson for us to hear as we begin the Christmas season. But, until we have understood the darkness, we cannot celebrate the Light of the Season.
In his book, Detours: Sometimes Rough Roads Lead to Right Places, Clark Cothern tells of a Christmas when his family encountered an unexpected house guest. A squirrel had fallen down their chimney into their wood burning stove. Cothern writes, "I thought if it knew we were there to help, I could just reach in and gently lift it out. Nothing doing. As I reached in
¼ it began scratching about like a squirrel overdosed on espresso."He caught the squirrel in a cardboard box into which the squirrel ran when he placed the box against the wood stove’s door. He let it out into the safety of his backyard.
Cothern said, "Isn’t it funny how, before its redemption, our little visitor had frantically tried to bash its way out of its dark prison?" It was futile. In the end, it took someone larger and more powerful to rescue him from his darkness.
That is where Isaiah was going. In the next two verses, Isaiah said, those who walk in darkness will see a great light. If you want to understand Christmas, then you must begin with the darkness. And we must understand that it is not their darkness, it is our darkness. It is a darkness of sin that we cannot overcome. The incarnation is God’s gracious response to our perpetual darkness. When you understand that, you are on your way to understanding Christmas. Christmas is about the light that God sends into the world. Seven hundred years later, the Apostle John wrote of Jesus,
1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it . . . 9 There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.
Jesus is the one who came to dispel the darkness. You cannot truly celebrate Christmas until you have come from the dark side. Jesus is the only light that can lead you out of your darkness. Don’t spend another Christmas in the dark. Come to Jesus, the light of the World.