Your Saving Light Has Come!

Epiphany Sunday, 1/1/17
Isaiah 60:1


Your Saving Light Has Come!
I. A light to see
II. A light to share


We speak every day about turning lights on and off. We do it with the flick of a switch or a motion sensor in a room does it for us.

We also speak of dimming the lights or bringing the lights up. We accomplish it by turning a knob or moving a toggle up or down.

But we don’t often speak about lights coming to us…unless you’re a hiker in a national park that has lost his or her way. Your cell phone is useless because there isn’t any coverage. You expended all your energy trudging in and out of brush trying to find any sort of trail. Darkness is descending and the temps are dropping. You have no food or water left. You’re shivering as you come to grips with the possibility that you might not live much longer. And then you see it. A light in the distance and it’s slowly coming towards you. You begin shouting and your shouts are returned. That light is the greatest sight you’ve ever seen. Within minutes your rescuers are helping you to your feet. Your ordeal is over.

That scenario is close to the one that Isaiah paints for God’s people in the words of our text this morning. “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” Obviously Isaiah isn’t speaking about the light of human rescuers. He’s speaking about the Savior of the world. Jesus called himself the light of the world. Light is often used in Scripture as a metaphor for our salvation. Couple those truths with the fact that a star led the wise men to worship their Savior and that makes light an appropriate focus for us on this Epiphany Sunday. We rejoice to know and believe that our saving light has come. Your saving light has come. May that truth brighten your heart and life this morning!

Part I.

You don’t have to be stranded in a national forest to experience how unnerving total darkness is. It’s no fun. Power outages in the dead of night cause us all sorts of problems. We all own electrical items and devices that are important for our lives and when they aren’t working, it makes us uneasy. Without any light, it’s difficult for us to assess what we’re facing. We easily stumble and fall in trying to make our way around. It’s no fun spending time in total darkness.

The same is true regarding spiritual darkness. The problem is we don’t know any better. That’s because spiritual darkness is our default mode. We didn’t come into this world full of love for the God who created us and redeemed us. Our hearts and minds weren’t brimming with spiritual truths. Spiritually speaking, we were full of spiritual darkness. The Bible describes our natural state as hostile to God and unable to come to know spiritual truths. We couldn’t even decide to choose God.

So, what’s at stake here? What’s the big deal if we’re living in spiritual darkness but don’t even know it? In some cases it’s been said that ignorance is bliss. But not in this one. Spiritual darkness blocks your relationship with your Creator and Redeemer. It refuses to acknowledge the One who brought all things into being and holds together the universe he created. It shuns the One who shed his blood so that he could have an eternally blissful relationship with you.

Worst of all, spiritual darkness, if left unaddressed and unresolved, leads to eternal darkness. Physically speaking, it’s like the person who is completely unaware of his serious heart condition. He’s leading a normal life, enjoying an activity he’s been enjoying for decades, when, suddenly, he drops dead. Spiritual darkness is much worse. It kills forever.

But you, my friends, are living in the light, the saving light of Jesus. A week ago you celebrated the truth that God sent a Savior into the world through the Jews just as he promised. Today we celebrate the truth that the Savior who came into the world is the world’s Savior. You’re a living example of that truth. You embrace Jesus as your Savior from sin. You willingly make him the Lord of your life. You rightly confess him as your greatest treasure. You acknowledge him to be King of kings and Lord of lords. You trust him alone for your forgiveness and salvation. That’s living in saving light.

But, given the way we all came into this world—in spiritual darkness—we can take credit for none of it. It’s all by God’s grace. God has brought you into his saving light not because of who you are, but in spite of who you are. God has brought you into his saving light only because of who he is. If it would have been up to us, we would have chosen darkness, because, as Jesus himself said, “Men loved darkness instead of light” (Jn. 3:19). It’s only due to God’s powerful saving activity in your life that you are now living in spiritual light. You know and confess the truth that Jesus is your Savior from sin. Like the light of human rescuers, saving light has come to you.

Your saving light has come—a light to see.

A light to see. By that I mean to see it continually, every day of your life. In fact, I can’t over-emphasize that. Just why is that so important? Recall what we said about ourselves. Our default mode is spiritual darkness. Recall what Jesus said about us. “Men loved darkness.” Even though we are living in spiritual light, we still gravitate towards spiritual darkness. Would you like some proof? Recall the last sin you committed about which you had told yourself, “I’m not going to commit that sin anymore.” God love you for your good intentions, but that fact that you failed reveals the darkness within you just as it lives in all of us. For the same reason sinning comes so easy to us but following God’s will is so difficult. So what hope do we have? The grace of God. The same grace of God that caused his saving light to shine in us in the first place. His means of grace are his word and sacraments. Those are his powerful means to keep us in his saving light. That’s how we keep seeing the light of our salvation. In this new year I can think of no better resolution to make than to decide to get closer to your God through his word and sacraments. Your light has come—a light to see every day of your life.

Part II.

I spoke of a power outage a few minutes ago. Were you living here in September 2008? If so, you recall what happened when the remnants of Hurricane Ike blew through our area. Even though it was a “dry” hurricane, it knocked out power for days. But one of the blessings it brought is that people spent time outside in the evenings with their neighbors, sharing food cooked on grills, sharing generators, doing whatever they could to help each other out. People are blessed when they share what they have.

The light that Isaiah speaks of is a light that leads people from every nation to embrace Jesus as their Savior. That happens as that light is shared.

The prophecy that people of every nation would embrace the Savior isn’t so startling to us, but it was from the perspective of the people in the Old Testament church. Almost exclusively in the Old Testament church, the people who believed in the only true God were comprised of people from one nation on earth, and a small nation at that. Certainly there were a few others, but they were the vast exception, not the rule. What saddens us is that even so many of the Old Testament Jews were rank unbelievers. The church in Old Testament times was extremely limited.

But not in the New Testament. That’s what the wise men’s trip to Bethlehem was all about. They had come to know the only true God and his promise to send a Savior into the world. Somehow they knew that the appearance of the star was an indication that the Savior had been born and it led them to where Jesus was. These Gentiles had come to worship Jesus as their Savior.

And fewer than 60 years later, countless other Gentiles had joined them. The Bible records how God used St. Paul to take the gospel west into the Roman Empire. Legend states that St. Thomas took it east. The Christians themselves, as they were scattered by persecution, took the gospel with them as they landed here and there in the known world.

That brings us to the modern Christian church on earth. Literally there are Christians in every country of the world. Our own synod has seen a huge shift recently in mission work. The emphasis isn’t so much anymore on sending missionaries to people of other nations. Instead, these people of other nations are Christians who want us to teach them further about the truths of God’s word and to train them so that they can share the gospel with their own people. What Isaiah foretold—people from all nations streaming to the light of salvation—we are witnessing. God’s saving light is a light to share.

The question remains: what’s our part in it? What can we as a congregation do to share the saving light of Jesus? Our mission offering is a great first step. It’s our way of training pastors and teachers in the truths of God’s word and sending them out with the gospel. It’s being friendly and welcoming when we have visitors in worship. It’s inviting unchurched people you know to attend worship with you. It’s introducing me to them. If you have an unchurched friend or relative who is hospitalized, ask them if I can come and say a prayer for them. Don’t wait until it’s too late! Offer to bring their children to our Sunday School. Share our website or Facebook page with someone you know.

Your saving light has come. Your Savior wants you to see that light every day and to share that light every chance you get. That’s living in saving light. Amen.