Darkness, A Condition Of The Heart Isaiah 60:1-3
[1] Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
[2] For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
[3] And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
DARKNESS, A CONDITION OF THE HEART
This Sunday we enter the Epiphany season, the season that takes place between Christmas and the beginning of Lent. This season is so little known that if we went about hanging out Epiphany lights, or kept wishing people, “Happy Epiphany,” they might think us a little strange. Yet Epiphany is one of the most exciting seasons of the church year because it stresses all the positive things that Jesus Christ came to earth to do for us. It speaks of brightness and of the glory that shines the wonderful light of the Gospel into every dark corner of our hearts and that enables us to face each new day with a smile on our face and a song in our dark hearts. The key word in our text this morning is found in the very first verse. It is the word, “glory.” “Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.”
When it comes to glory, we need look back only one week to the fields of Bethlehem on Christmas Eve to witness the glory of the LORD that shone round about with a light so bright, so pure, so dazzling that the shepherds were terrified. It took an angel of the LORD to convince them that this was nothing to be afraid of. They had come as close to seeing God as His glory would permit. Of course, they were repelled by God’s holiness as any sinner would be, but they were also to experience the warmth and kindness and love of His glory that radiated from the manger at Bethlehem. This morning’s text tells us that the same glory that shone about the shepherds “is risen upon us.” This is not a frightening glory, but a glory that can do for us what it did for the shepherds, whose hearts were so filled with joy after they had seen the Christ child, that on their return they kept telling everybody they met about this “Light of the World,” John 8:12.
What Isaiah wrote in our text, “Arise, shine, for your light is come,” St. Paul paraphrased in the New Testament this way: “Awake, thou that sleepiest, and arise from the dead and Christ shall give you light.” Ephesians 5:14. The point that the apostle makes is that a person can’t very well arise from sleep or death unless he has been asleep or dead. That is exactly how the prophet Isaiah described the world of his day. He writes: “darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people.” It is easy enough to understand how people who live independent of God’s will, people who steal and rob and fornicate and even kill, are surely living in the gross darkness of sin. They blindly pursue their basic lusts without any thought of a future recompense.
However, it is harder to understand how Isaiah could be describing the enlightened Jews of his age as a people who were walking in gross darkness. Outwardly they were a righteous people, but inwardly they were in the dark. They so firmly believed that they did not need the light of Christ, that could earn their way into heaven, that they ridiculed Isaiah as someone who didn’t know what he was talking about. In their self-righteousness they tried to kill any prophet who would point them to the light of Christ, until in the end they nailed our Savior to the cross. By clinging to the law and despising the precious Gospel, they were in darkness so gross that they did not know where they were going, or what they were doing, as Christ said about them at the crucifixion, “for they know not what they do,” Luke 23:34. They were “blind leaders of the blind,” Matthew 15:14, leading their followers into the ditch of everlasting perdition.
Not only Isaiah’s world, but the world of every age has been living in the darkness of sin. Our age is no exception; in fact, I don’t think there is an age in the history of the world that has been as proud of its enlightenment as we are. We rattle our sabers with the nuclear bomb, we glorify doctors instead of the LORD for extending human life with the marvels of science, and we even play God with the alleged creation of a human clone. The world’s counselors and educators have all kinds of methods for happiness: they urge us to ignore the sin in our lives and to have absolute confidence that we can mold our lives the way we want them to go. For all its enlightenment, our world is wandering aimlessly in darkness. You see, there is no darkness as gross as arrogant and presumptuous reliance on oneself. When man relies on the light of his reason or on the strength of his character or his innate ability to solve his problems, he is literally walking about in the darkness of self-righteousness which leaves no room for the light of the Gospel. In earthly affairs, man’s judgment suffices. But how to have a happy heart is something about which human reason is stone blind and dark.
Unfortunately, we by nature far too often tend to rely on human wisdom rather than on the Word of the Lord. Isn’t it true that our Old Adam constantly tempts us to find our joys “in the hidden things of dishonesty,” 2 Corinthians 4:2? How easily are we put our inner lusts and desires above God’s Word, and pride ourselves on who we are or how we look, and to look down on others. If there were no darkness in our hearts, there would be no need for the light of the Gospel. If we are not convinced that we are natural born sinners, all the talk of the glory and light of Jesus Christ is meaningless prattle.
Jesus did not come for the proud and self-righteous. He came for us, for people who are aware of the gross darkness in their very own hearts, a people, who feel the pain of sin, and welcome the blessed Savior who comes with healing in His wings. He sheds the warmth of the Gospel on our unworthy hearts and shows us what a life of faith is all about. He replaces sorrow over sin with the joy of forgiveness; He removes anxiety from our hearts with a joyful trust that He will do what is right for us, and He quells the passionate love we have for ourselves and replaces it with a genuine love for each other. Unlike the world that wanders in darkness, we live in a spiritual world of light that shines the truth of God’s word on every step we take and everything we do.
There is a final thought. When Isaiah writes, “Arise, shine,” he literally encourages you and me to have lives that shine. Perhaps you have never thought about it before, but Jesus also calls us the light of the world. He says, “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid,” Matthew 5:14. Think of the ways in which you are a light. The kindness you show can easily make someone else’s life a little brighter. You can speak works that have the power to lift a downcast heart and to comfort to a despairing soul. You see, you and I are the instruments of the Holy Spirit to spread the glorious riches of His grace to an unbelieving world, as Isaiah predicted, that “the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” We see this fulfilled in the life of the Apostle Paul who carried the light of the Gospel to the Mediterranean world and gladdened the hearts of Gentiles in city after city. Though the Jews tried to check his efforts, yes, even to exterminate him, their plans never succeeded. The greater their opposition to the Gospel, the more rapidly it spread, because God’s word has the divine promise that it will always succeed and cannot be extinguished.
May we this morning thank our Lord for the Epiphany glory of His Son, a glory that illuminates our hearts, brightens our lives, and promises us everlasting glory in heaven.