1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of
the LORD rises upon you. 2 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness
is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over
you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of
your dawn.
4 “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come
to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm.
5 Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy;
the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations
will come. 6 Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian
and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and
proclaiming the praise of the LORD.
- Isaiah 60:1-6, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House) 1984.
Dear Friends in Christ,
We begin with some trivia from Church history. If I were to ask you what was the first great day of celebration that was made into a yearly festival by the early church, what would you guess? If you guessed Easter, you would be right. That only makes sense, doesn’t it? If Christ had not risen from the grave He wouldn’t be the ever-living Savior He claimed to be, and the entire foundation of Christianity would be a lie.
If I were to ask you what was the second great day of celebration marked on a yearly basis in the early church, what would you guess? If you said Christmas, you would no doubt be in good company; nevertheless, you’d be wrong. The second great holy day marked by the early church was the festival we are observing today – the Festival of Epiphany. Why? What is the significance of Epiphany? Perhaps a brief review is in order.
"Epiphany" comes from a Greek word meaning "manifestation" or "showing forth." The message of Epiphany revolves around this idea and the day of Epiphany was set aside to rejoice in two great truths. Truth #1 is that Jesus Christ has through His words and actions (especially His miracles) repeatedly "manifested" Himself or "shown Himself forth" to be the Son of God. Truth #2 is that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, "manifested" Himself to be the Savior God of the world. Although He broke into our space and time through one particular nation, He is the Savior of all mankind.
Our Scripture lessons for today were selected to underscore these two great truths. The Old Testament lesson (our text) talks about the Savior breaking forth into the world like a light that chases away darkness and draws people from every nation to Himself. In the Epistle lesson, Paul talks about his role in getting the message of Jesus Christ out to the Gentiles – meaning anyone who isn’t of Jewish descent. And it is not difficult to see how the familiar account of the Wise Men – non-Jews from far-off lands humbly and reverently recognizing and then worshiping Jesus as the newborn King – is the traditional Epiphany Gospel reading.
It is this double message of Epiphany – and what it means to us – that we would like to contemplate once again today, as we consider, in the term used in our text
THE GLORY THAT IS OURS
What we’d like to do is first briefly work through our Old Testament text, and then consider its message in light of its New Testament fulfillment. In doing so, we will see ourselves as both
1. Receivers of light, and
2. Reflectors of light
Try to picture the scene and the emotional landscape. The year: approximately 750 BC. The place: Old Testament Israel (same as the modern day nation). Personnel: The Jews – God’s chosen nation through whom He intends to bless the entire world, for it is this nation that will produce the Savior according to His human nature.
The problem: Despite their high calling and favored status, the people didn’t feel or seem particularly blessed. And there was a reason. Much of the nation was riddled with unbelief. Although outwardly religious, spiritually they were very far away from their God. Isaiah and other prophets had been calling them to repentance, but to no avail. And God’s judgment was beginning to set in.
Still, there remained true believers among them. Devout, Old Testament believers who loved the Lord and believed in the Savior-to-come that God had promised them. Devout Old Testament believers who were saved by faith in that coming Savior and, out of love for what God had done for them, strived to live to His honor and glory and according to His Word.
But even for them, faithful as they were, encouragement was needed. Isaiah provides it with these words. Speaking of future events as if they had already happened, Isaiah tells them: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."
In other words, the promised light – the Savior – would come. He would come to dispel and chase away the darkness of sin and unbelief and despair that covers the earth. He will draw people from all nations to Himself, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor.
That same kind of imagery – people from all nations coming to know and believe and rejoice in the Savior – continues in the second portion of our text as well: "Lift up your eyes and look about you; All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth of the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the Lord."
Because this light will come and the glory of the Lord will rise upon them, Isaiah tells God’s people not to be downhearted and not to view life only by their immediate circumstances. but to arise from their gloom and shine as they reflect the glory that is theirs.
Who is this light? Who is the glory of the Lord? We know this is a reference to Jesus Christ. In words similar to those spoken through Isaiah, some seven centuries later Jesus would say this of Himself, recorded for us in the Gospel of John: "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will see the light of life."
To speak of Jesus as "light" is a very appropriate description, wouldn’t you say? After all, what does light do? It illuminates an area. It chases away darkness. It allows us to see clearly.
And in a spiritual sense, this is exactly what Jesus is all about. He came first and foremost to set us free from the darkness of sin and unbelief. He came to conquer the Prince of Darkness, Satan, and by His death on the cross rendered him powerless. Satan can tempt us and he can annoy us, but he can’t claim us as his own. Because we are children of the light.
Through the work of the Holy Spirit, who, as we confess in our creeds, "proceeds from the Father and the Son," we have been illuminated so we don’t stumble around in the darkness of despair but bask in the light of the truth. There is a world out there which is looking for answers and trying to make sense out of life, but is clueless, rudderless and blind. But not us. The Psalmist put it well: "Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path."
So the personal application of the Epiphany message to ourselves is this: We have seen the light. We know Jesus is the Son of God, our Savior. We are His followers. By the grace of God His "epiphany" has not been lost to us. And that means we are the ones who possess "the light of life" – fulfilled life in the present and eternal life forevermore. This is the glory that is ours.
As recipients of God’s glory in Christ, we are also reflectors of God’s glory in Christ. In Jesus statement from the Book of John we are called His followers. If He is the light, that makes us reflectors, doesn’t it? So let us take up this question: What does it mean to follow Jesus? This is what Scripture tells us:
In its most fundamental sense to "follow" Jesus means to believe that He is the very Son of God He claimed to be and to trust Him as our Savior from sin. This means recognizing our unflattering natural condition – sinful, and our greatest need – forgiveness. At the moment of our death everything else that we attach importance to on this earth will slip away and be meaningless – except this.
Therefore to follow Jesus first of all means to understand the Gospel message and God’s plan of salvation whereby He punished His Son for our sins. Such recognition leads to a response.
To follow Jesus, then, means to love Him as our Redeemer. It is generally not difficult to love someone who has done a great deal for us; and no one has done more for us than Jesus. Loving Jesus translates into living to His glory and honor. It means gladly and willingly doing what He asks of us in His Word, because this is some small way in which we can demonstrate our love.
To follow Jesus means to be His disciple. A disciple is one who sits at a Master Teacher’s feet, learns from him, and then applies what is learned to one’s own life. To be a disciple of Jesus, then, means to actively and thoroughly acquaint ourselves with His Word. It means to take seriously Jesus’ statement from His Sermon on the Mount: "Seek first his kingdom and His righteousness."
Not that discipleship will always be easy. In fact, it is often hard. Jesus once told us that if the world hated Him, it will hate us as well. He told us that the path of true discipleship involves self-denial and cross-bearing. The Apostle Paul tells us that we must "through much tribulation" enter the Kingdom of God. In other words, if we take our Christianity seriously we will find ourselves in conflict with much of what’s happening in the world.
But despite that, to follow Jesus means joy. Joy is the mark of the early Christians we read about in the Book of Acts. Joy is the emotion that resounds from the Apostle Paul to the Philippians – even though he wrote this letter from prison not knowing whether he would live or die. And joy is what wells up in the heart of every believer as we simply contemplate the glory that is ours.
However, we sometimes fail to reflect that joy. Why is this? Perhaps because we let too many other things get in the way. Too often we see the temporal as eternal and the eternal as being irrelevant to life. The atheist German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once made this rather stinging comment about the Christians of his day: "I would believe in their salvation if they looked a little more like a saved people." An interesting observation – and one which asks us to look at the reflection of Christ that we are giving before a watching world.
But joylessness is a malady that can and will quickly change if we simply focus on the things that really matter. And what really matters is Jesus Christ, the light of the world, and our relationship with Him. Maybe that sounds simplistic, but it is the solution that Isaiah gave to the people of his day. And it just as relevant for us today as it was for them back then.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. Our Savior. This is the message of Epiphany. Therefore in a sense of renewed joy and commitment, let us – in a paraphrase of the opening verse of our text – "arise and shine, for our light has come, because the glory of the Lord has risen upon us."
So maybe the early Christians were on to something when they made today second only to Easter in high holy days. Blessings of the Epiphany to us all. Amen.