Third Sunday after the Epiphany: Old Testament, Isaiah 9:1-4              

Isaiah 9:1-4

God is all about rescue. From the earliest pages of the scriptures we see God in rescue mode. Not frantically. Not out of sorts. But flexing his “saving muscles,” God loves to rescue. In saying that, please note that I am not saying the Lord would rather have us in a place needing  rescue. But how glorious, that even when we are regularly in need, God doesn’t allow His eye to move very far from His needy children.

In Isaiah we read of the people of God “walking in darkness” (Is. 9:2). It’s a darkness formed within and over them because they live, in this instance, in the coastlands of the Mediterranean Sea with a great admixture of Gentile and pagan influence that both took the lead and captured the hearts of God’s people. It’s a spiritual darkness that invades in every age and in every place that God’s Word is not heeded. Here “the land of Zebulun and Naphtali” are in view. 

The gospel reading for the week will point back to this text. And where the Hebrew is translated “walked” in 9:2, Matthew takes the lead in pointing to a people settled in darkness. The ESV uses “dwelling,” the NKJV uses “sat.” In other words, the darkness had settled upon the people and had taken spiritual life and leading from their minds and hearts. Dastardly place to be.

The only answer to darkness is light. And seven hundred years before the birth of that LIGHT, the great prophet proclaims the promise of rescue as certain and accomplished. The coming light is not just around the calendar’s corner, but it is on the way. The Light is on. Get up from spiritual darkness and decline and live. Look to the Light.