Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Advent-Christmas Devotional - 2017 - single page | Page 45

The Light of the World
Saturday, January 6th
Isaiah 60:1-2
Our family took a vacation years ago to western South Dakota. One place we visited was Wind Cave
National Park. It is one of the largest caves in the world with over 140 miles of known passages. We
followed our guide underground and she brought us to a large cavern lit by electric lights. She explained
that we were about 55 feet underground. Then she turned out the lights. It is unnerving to experience
total darkness. We all strained to catch some faint glow, some little shimmer of light, but there was none.
Just the deepest of darkness.
God’s people were feeling that deepest darkness in Isaiah’s day. Their nation has been overrun, their
people carried off into slavery, they despair so much that they can’t possibly see any good, even God has
failed them. As Isaiah says, “Darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people.” That doom
and gloom came from the despair they felt over being conquered and something else, it was the
realization of and knowledge of their sinfulness. For it was sin that brought about the destruction of their
nation.
Doom and gloom. You ever feel that way in your relationship with God? Doom and gloom. You see
failure—most of all that of others. You think of how someone hurt and angered you, cast this dark cloud
over you and you just felt like raining gloom all over the place.
And then we open God’s Word and we hear Isaiah’s command. “Arise, shine for your light has come, and
the glory of the Lord rises upon you!” What makes him giddy and hopeful in the middle of this gloom?
Well, it’s light. The only light that could bring any joy to people who saw the guilt of their sin and the
damage that it had caused. Isaiah is reminding them of God’s promise to send a Savior, Jesus, and what
that meant for them. They had an eternal inheritance to look forward to where there would be no doom
and gloom and no sin.
Because Jesus is the Light we have something to be joyful about, the doom and gloom of sin has been
removed. We need to know that. And when all we see is the darkness of sin in ourselves and this world,
we need to be reminded, Jesus is the Light. Listen to what God tells us in his Word: Don’t despair. No
doom and gloom. Arise, shine, your light has come! Amen.
Prayer: Sing or pray together the words of this verse from the hymn “O Light of Gentile Nations.”
Lord, when life’s troubles touch us, You seem to hide your face.
And through our tears we often Can scarcely sense your grace.
Then be our joy and brightness, Our cheer in pain and loss,
Our sun in darkest terror, The glory round our cross. Amen. (CW Hymn 78, v.3)
Activity: Jesus called himself “The Light of the world” several times. Come up with as many reasons as
you can as to why “light” is such a great descriptive word for Jesus.
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