Good weekend to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This is a very special weekend as we anticipate the arrival of Christmas next week. In our Christmas journey ’24 we’ve been considering “Christmas Questions” over these past three weeks. So how about this question for this weekend: “What if NO Christmas?”
Today in many parts of our world “Christmas” is either a non-religious holiday with no spiritual meaning or Christmas simply doesn’t exist! Can you imagine that? No Christmas carols or familiar Christmas music. No Christmas cards. No Christmas gifts or gatherings. No Nativity scenes. No Christmas church services. Nothing to mark this next week as any different from any other week in our busy lives. I invite us to pause for a moment and really think about this question: What would be different in your life if every aspect of our Christian Christmas was eliminated? That is the darkness in which BILLIONS of people live around our world today!
Almost 700 years before that first Christmas, God gave the Jewish prophet Isaiah a ‘wakeup call’ message for the people of Israel who were floundering spiritually, and we find it in Isaiah 8:19-22. Do these words describe many parts of our world TODAY: “Distressed and hungry people will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and looking upward, 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 despair.” (Isaiah 8:21.22)
Now how does a family or a neighborhood or community or state or a whole nation find themselves in this desperate dark place? While this might apply to a famine situation where people are starving, the deeper desperation God is describing here is not the absence of food or potable water.
God is here describing the terrible darkness which exists when/where there is an absence of God!! That is the desperation of hopelessness which occurs when God is rejected and driven out of a family or neighborhood or city or country. Look around, do you see some of those places today? Are the people in those places suffocating in the darkness of evil and unrestrained wickedness as the prophet Isaiah described? Is this the picture of your city?
Christmas is God’s response to that darkness and despair!! And so, Isaiah’s prophetic message continues with these words of God’s hope: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Is. 9:2) Our greatest hunger in the darkness is for LIGHT, do you agree? A little light gives us hope; more light can guide us out of the darkness; a lot of light can dispel the darkness!
Obviously, Isaiah is not talking about a flashlight or lighthouse beacon or even sunlight. Isaiah was pointing forward to Christmas and how Jesus Christ, God’s LIGHT of HOPE would penetrate the darkness of our world!! How? Well… Do you remember the blinding light of the angels in the sky and their message of HOPE to the shepherds that Christmas night? “I bring you good news of great joy for ALL people. Today…a Savior has been born to you…Glory to God in the highest and on earth PEACE to those on whom His favor rests.” (Luke 2:10,11,14)
Now my friends, you’ve heard the Christmas story often enough it should not be difficult for you to understand the dramatic significance of each word and phrase is this angelic proclamation! God’s LIGHT of HOPE for the world was proclaimed by angels and then SEEN by the Shepherds as they ran to Bethlehem and were the first people to see God incarnate in baby Jesus lying in a manger! (Luke 2:16) God’s LIGHT of Peace, as promised by Isaiah, had come into our world!
Now my friends, have you noticed that God has designed LIGHT to ignite a ripple effect of HOPE, JOY, PEACE, ANTICIPATION? That “ignite” happens when you flip on the light in a dark room or when the ship’s captain sees the lighthouse beam through the fog. That’s what happened with Christmas! HOPE, JOY, PEACE and ANTICIPATION ignited with the shepherds, and it ignited with old Zechariah who brought the shocking news to his wife Elizabeth that God had heard their prayers, and they would have a miracle son in their old age and that son would be the forerunner, the announcer of the Messiah!! The Light ignited in Joseph when he was convinced Mary had NOT been unfaithful but was experiencing a divine conception, so Joseph gained the courage to take her as his wife!
But watch this, friends, a person can actually seek to EXTINGUISH all this wonderful God infusion of HOPE, JOY, PEACE, ANTICIPATION when they refuse the light and the hope of God as King Herod did, right? Or people can be so busy they simply ignore the arrival of the light as the people of Bethlehem did. So, which is it for you this Christmas my friends? The world around us is in desperately dark condition with many people only surviving in despair this December, but God is reaching to our dark world with even more Christmas LIGHT than that first Christmas! Is that possible? Oh yes!
You see the Holy Spirit of God is alive in all those who have trusted Jesus to be their Savior and now the Holy Spirit is awakening HOPE, JOY, PEACE and ANTICIPATION all around the world as God’s people celebrate Christmas Jesus this week!! So instead of the LIGHT coming to one tiny village Bethlehem that Christmas night, God’s LIGHT is in almost 1 billion people who love Jesus and have experienced the HOPE, JOY, PEACE and the REALITY of new life in Christ all around the world! Are you among those who are radiating the LIGHT of Jesus this Christmas in your part of the world?
One last thought about the promise of Isaiah 9:2. Do you remember Jesus said “I am the light of the world! Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life…If you hold to My teachings, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the TRUTH and the truth will set you free!” (John 8:12,31,32) Jesus brought the truth of God to our world! The truth about God, the truth about sinful humanity, the truth about our despair and the truth that HE is the only light to guide us out of our despair. Do you remember, on the night before Jesus went to the cross, He said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to God the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6)
Oh, my friends, I hope you recognize Jesus as the only God sent LIGHT who can rescue you from the despair and darkness of our world! I hope you have asked and trusted Jesus to rescue you and you are now living with the light of God’s Holy Spirit cleansing your mind and heart and radiating out from you to our dark world this Christmas! Because… as you and I both know, without the Jesus of Christmas…after the music and parties quiet down, there is nothing but the darkness and emptiness of Isaiah 8:21,22 all around us! So, this weekend before Christmas, let’s brilliantly radiate the light of Jesus, wherever you are, and here’s a great Christmas hope song to propel us toward Christmas…
Today’s Scripture: Is. 8:21-9:2; John 8:12.
Choose below to read or listen.
Is. 8:21-9:2
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John 8:12
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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