Advent; Hope in the Darkness ~ 20231203 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org
23/12/03 Advent; Hope in the Darkness; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20231203_advent-hope.mp3
Night and Darkness in the Carols
Have you ever noticed how many Christmas carols are set against the backdrop night or darkness?
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our dear Savior's birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
'Til He appears and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born
O night, O Holy night, O night divine!
O Come O Come Emmanuel:
O come, O Bright and Morning Star,
and bring us comfort from afar!
Dispel the shadows of the night
and turn our darkness into light
Hark The Herald Angels Sing:
Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Go, Tell It On The Mountain:
While shepherds kept their watching
O’er silent flocks by night,
Behold, throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light.
When Was Jesus Born?
We don’t actually know what time of day Jesus was born. O Come All Ye Faithful actually includes this line:
Yea, Lord, we greet Thee, born this happy morning;
We don’t base what we believe on songs, but on Scripture. Luke’s gospel simply tells us:
Luke 2:4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
This doesn’t tell us what time of day it was. We make the assumption (and it’s probably a fair assumption) that the time the angels appeard to the shepherds was around the same time that Jesus was born.
Luke 2:8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.
Darkness and Prophetic Hope
Why night? Why darkness? These are echoes of prophetic hopes...
Isaiah 9:2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
Isaiah 42:6 “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. 3 And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
When John was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, Zechariah prophesied;
Luke 1:76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, 77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
In the temple Simeon took the baby Jesus in his arms and blessed God,
Luke 2:30 for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”
Guilty Rebellious Darkness
What is this darkness from which the prophets promise escape? We all understand the dangers of darkness. Anyone ever stubbed their toe in the dark? Or misjudge something in the dark? We were hiking, and it was getting dark, and I missed a turn in the trail. And I could say ‘it wasn’t my fault’. I wasn’t trying to get lost. I was trying to follow the trail. It’s just easy to lose your way in the dark. But that’s not the way the Bible describes darkness, as circumstances beyond our control.
Psalm 107 thanks God for his steadfast love, for redeeming people out of their trouble.
Psalm 107:10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons, 11 for they had rebelled against the words of God, and spurned the counsel of the Most High. 12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor; they fell down, with none to help.
Prisoners in darkness and the shadow of death, why? Because they rebelled against God, ignored his word. This darkness is consequence of disobedience. It is parallel to ‘the shadow of death’; because the wages of sin is death. When we rebel, when we spurn God’s word, when we reject his light, we deserve to be plunged into darkness. This darkness is not a benign circumstance that happens upon us; it is something we wilfully and rebelliously embrace. But, amazing grace, this Psalm doesn’t leave them there.
Psalm 107:13 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart. 15 Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! 16 For he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron.
Darkness is punishment for disobedience, a punishment that God can graciously overcome when we cry out to him.
Proverbs 2 promises to the one who seeks God’s wisdom in the fear of the Lord, that wisdom will guard you,
Proverbs 2:12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, 13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, 15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.
This is not losing your way because you can’t see clearly. This is willfully forsaking the right paths to walk in the ways of darkness, which is further described as rejoicing in doing evil, delighting in the perverseness of evil, crooked and devious.
So when we read about ‘darkness covering the earth’ and ‘people walking in darkness’, ‘people who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death’ we shouldn’t think ‘Oh poor helpless them’; rather, ‘That’s me, I deserve death; I’m living in the dark because I rebelliously chose it’.
We need to be honest and realistic about the dark. It’s dangerous. It’s destructive. It’s a guilty darkness, and it’s my fault; I chose it.
It is my darkness that is the backdrop of the Christmas story. This is why the gospel is so amazingly good.
The True Light
John begins his gospel;
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.
The divine Word, the Creator of all things, the source of life and light, the One who was with God and who was himself God, shone into the darkness. My darkness. The darkness doesn’t grasp the light, doesn’t comprehend it, it can’t overtake it.
John 1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
The true light, the one who is himself life and light, was coming into the world. The light that overcomes the darkness is personal. He came. He came to be known, and the world did not know him. He came to break the darkness in his people, and his own people did not receive him. When the lights came on, like cockroaches we scurried for cover.
John 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
This darkness is dark indeed. It is guilty darkness, because we don’t want to be exposed to the light. We willfully forsake the right path, we rejoice in evil, we love the darkness. Light has come into the world, and we hate the light. We refuse to come to the light.
Opening Blind Eyes
Light shines into our prison cell on death row, and we recoil and back into the shadows. But Jesus came not just to shine a light but to open blind eyes and bring people out of prison.
2 Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ...6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
The Spirit of God opens blind eyes. God overcomes our darkness so we can see, so we can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So we can see that the prison we are in is a prison and we want out. So we can see the light of the good news and believe in Jesus.
John calls this new birth, being born of God.
John 1:12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Through Darkness He Brings Us Light
Matthew 4:16 the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.”
Jesus’ story begins and ends in darkness. He came as light shining into our darkness. The true light was coming into the world, to open blind eyes, to set captives free, and we took him into custody, and mocked him and beat him, and blindfolded him (Lk.22:63-64).
We crucified the one who is life, between two thieves.
Mark 15:29 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, 30 save yourself, and come down from the cross!” 31 So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked him to one another, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.” Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. 33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ... 37 And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. 38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Jesus’ story began in darkness, as the light shining in a dark place. Jesus’ story ends in three hours of deep darkness, as the Father forsook his only Son, as Jesus the sin-bearer took my darkness and suffered my separation. But it was in this darkness that he defeated darkness and undid death.
So when you see Christmas lights shining in the darkness, let them remind you of this; This world is a really dark place. Jesus came to penetrate your darkness with his glorious light.
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2023.12.03 Sermon Notes
Advent; Hope in the Darkness
Silent Night
O Holy Night!
O Come O Come Emmanuel
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Go Tell It On The Mountain
Was Jesus born at night?
Luke 2:4-9
Darkness and Prophetic hope
Isaiah 9:2; 42:6-7; 60:1-3;
Luke 1:76-79; 2:30-32
Our guilty rebellious darkness
Psalm 107:10-16; Proverbs 2:12-15
The True Light opens blind eyes
John 1:1-13; Genesis 1:1-4;
John 3:19; 2 Corinthians 4:4-7
Jesus’ story begins and ends with darkness;
Through darkness he brings us light
Matthew 4:16; Luke 22:63-64; Mark 15:29-38
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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org