The Perfect Light

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned." Isaiah 9:2

I'm sure that somewhere in my seminary education I received some remarkable commentary on this Bible verse.  I'm quite certain that the professor put the verse in accurate historical context during the time of the prophet Isaiah.  Those class notes are long gone and that context is long forgotten. If you are familiar with this verse  you might have read it in Matthew 4:16. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who live in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined." My professor, I'm quite sure, would have described what was going on in Isaiah's day before he discussed what was going on around  Matthew's life.  He would have pointed out that those words had significance in Isaiah's day apart from any significance in Jesus' day. Only after his discussion of Isaiah would he have explained the prophetic aspect of the verse related to Matthew's gospel regarding beginning of Jesus' ministry in Galilee.

Though written about 700 years apart with an entirely different historical context, what each quote has in common is that God's people  were in bondage. Isaiah witnessed the Assyrian exile. Matthew witnessed the Roman oppression. In both cases the Jews were in despair and in desperate need of deliverance. "The people walked in darkness." They saw no great light.

Another context for the scripture came in 1741 when Charles Jennens included these words in the libretto he submitted to George Frideric Handel.   Messiah was not received well initially, but within a few years the oratorio was performed successfully world-wide. It is now one of the most beloved and frequently performed oratorios in all of Western music.  Because of Messiah and and its inclusion in many other Christmas productions, Isaiah 9:2 has become a very popular scripture passage at Christmas.  And a very important one.

This is the second Christmas season that I have used these useful devices. I'm sure that they have been around for some time, but I was not familiar with them.  When I plug the outside lights into them, I can set them for the decorations to come on at dusk and go off in whatever number of hours I dial in.  It was never that much trouble  to go outside and plug in some Christmas lights, but it's nice to plug them in once at the beginning of the season and let these magic devices do the rest.

Then it occurred to me.  With these devices the absence of light turns on the lights. These devices  react not to light, but to the lack of light. This is probably the same technology that turns on my headlights, but who knew it could turn on my Christmas decorations?  Who knew that darkness creates light?

And so, of course, there's a metaphor.  I thought "that's the way it's been since the beginning of time; the darkness creates the light". "Darkness was over the surface of the deep and God said,'Let there be light, and there was light.' " For me the most powerful yin/yang in existence is dark/light.  You can't have one without the other.  They mutually  coexist.  You'll see these interdependent dualities in the symbol itself. The yin/yang symbol is created with  black and white "apostrophes" nestled together as a circle. But inside the black part is a white circle and inside the white part is a black circle.  Not only do black and white coexist, but each contains the other. "The people walked in darkness." I doubt that Isaiah meant that all of the Israelites were stumbling around in the dark. He didn't mean  that literally.  He must have been referring to another kind of darkness, a darkness must deeper than physical darkness. But whether or not you're talking about physical darkness or mental and emotional agony, it always creates light.  Go to the darkest,  most remote place on earth where no artificial lights exist for hundreds of miles.  Look up and you don't see darkness, you see light.  Millions and millions of lights. And if's the other kind of darkness you're dealing with, even in the midst of despair, there's help.  There's hope.

So finally the metaphor that I believe both Isaiah and Matthew intended.  Bondage isn't the  final word. The Messiah will come. The Messiah did come. The Light of the world is here. Years ago I read a science fiction book that was not a "Christian book"; it was just good science fiction.  The plot, as you might expect, was on some far distant planet in some far distant star system. Two star travelers were discussing something that concerned them. They were in the cosmos and the concern was on a cosmic scale.   One said to the other, "All that changed in Bethlehem."

One of the most beautiful images provided by the Christmas story is that of the natal star. "Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright."  It's not "the star of light", it's the "star of night." "Westward leading, still proceeding. Guide us to the perfect light."

A device that uses the dark to turn on Christmas lights. Now for a device that turns off the gas logs when I go to bed.