Jesu Juva

“The Night Will Soon Be Ending: The Light of the World in the Manger”

Text: Luke 1:68-79; Isaiah 9:2-6; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6;

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

The night will soon be ending, the dawn cannot be far (LSB #337 v.1).

Last week, we considered that the light of creation first revealed not a perfectly ordered creation, but one that was tohu wabohu - formless and void. But that God, by His Word, brought order to His creation, and it was good. Very good. Until, that is, man brought darkness and disorder back again, with our sin; the evidence of which we see all around us still today. But a good and gracious and lovingly persistent God could not, would not, stand idly by, but shone His light into the darkness again, with the light of a promise. A light not only to reveal the tohu wabohu of our sin, but a promise to bring order out of our disorder; to scatter the darkness of sin, that we live in the light of His forgiveness and love. That we not get what we deserve, but instead be the recipients of His mercy and grace. Good news, indeed.

And tonight, our focus is on that promise fulfilled, as the small flicker of a promise in the beginning was fanned into the flame of God’s love, until The Light of the World shone in the Manger.

Consider, though, for a moment, how hard a promise this was to keep! Because we, men and women across the centuries, kept getting in the way and trying to mess it up! In the Holy Gospel we heard tonight, the words of Zechariah, he said that God remembered his holy covenant, to show the mercy promised to our fathers, the oath he swore to our father Abraham. Abraham, who would have lost his wife Sarah to the Egyptians had God not intervened, and who then got tired of waiting for God to remember him and so had a son through Sarah’s maidservant Hagar. The promise then went through Isaac, who preferred his son Esau to Jacob, even though the promise would pass down to Jacob, and Jacob who was no paragon of virtue! Jacob’s son were a wild bunch, rollicking in all kinds of sins, not the least of which was selling their brother Joseph into slavery and then telling their father he was dead. After God’s marvelous deliverance of them from their slavery in Egypt, the people did nothing but grumble and complain against God and how He wasn’t doing anything right, and, oh yeah, there was the golden calf incident! The promise went to David who both soared to heights of greatness and plummeted into the depths of sin, and then to his son Solomon, who followed in his steps. You get the picture.

But God is God through all time and eternity, unchanged and unchanging. And so the good and gracious and lovingly persistent God who in the beginning could not, would not, stand idly by, but shone His light into the darkness again, kept doing so. Kept repeating His promise. Kept shining that light. Until that light shone from the manger. Until for us a child was born, and a son given. And there, in that small package, the light of God’s faithfulness, the light of His love, the light of His mercy and grace, shone never so brightly.

Which is good news for us who follow in the footsteps of our fathers in the faith. For who among us can cast the first stone? Who among us has not doubted like Abraham, or also taken matters into our own hands? Or played favorites or hurt others to do what we thought best? Or lied and deceived to get what we wanted? Who among us hasn’t plunged into the depths of sin, or grumbled and complained that God wasn’t doing things right, or worshipped our own golden calves, our own false gods? Please stand up so we can admire you and give you a gold star!

And yet still God is shining His light into our dark, disordered world and lives. To, as Zechariah said, give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Which is the cross. That is the way of peace. A place of pain and torture, suffering and death, transformed by God into an instrument of peace. That there be peace between God and man again. Peace in our hearts roiled by sin and guilt. For this a child was born. For this a son was given. To fulfill God’s promise and die. And if this was a hard promise to keep because we kept getting in the way and trying to mess it up, even more was it a hard promise to keep because of the enormity of it - the enormity of the sin and guilt heaped upon Jesus. For as Isaiah said, this darkness was no small darkness, but deep darkness. So the child from the manger sweating great drops of blood. The child from the manger forsaken by His Father. The child from the manger sealed in the darkness of a tomb. To break even that darkness with the light of His life.

And with that, the sunrise from on high has dawned upon us. The Morning Star has risen, to bring order to our tohu wabohu disordered hearts and lives again. So as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, we do not lose heart. We renounce the disgraceful, underhanded ways of darkness. We refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God’s Word. We proclaim the truth. The promise kept. The light in the manger. The light from the cross. And the light in the darkness which shines in our hearts. The light which, yes, reveals our sin, but only for this: to atone for it. To not cover it and hide it again with darkness, but obliterate it with the light of forgiveness. Or as Paul put it, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Which is a verse and a thought worth pondering for a moment . . . the light . . . of the knowledge of the glory of God . . . in the face of Jesus Christ. The face of Jesus that looked upon Peter after his three denials and made him weep tears of repentance. The face of Jesus that looked upon the thief on the cross next to Him, that he confess and ask for salvation. The face of Jesus that looked upon those eleven cowering, frightened disciples and said peace be with you (John 20:19, 21). The face of Jesus which is the face of God. The face of Jesus which fulfills the Benediction of Aaron heard so often and for so long:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord lift up his countenance - that is, His face - upon you

and give you peace (Numbers 6:24-26).

That baby in the manger is the very face of God, shining upon us. The Lord blessing us, keeping us, gracing us, lifting us, and giving us peace. The Light of the World shining brightly from the manger.

Or as we sang:

The Night Will Soon Be Ending, for

The One whom angels tended comes near, a child, to serve;
thus God, the judge offended, bears all our sins deserve.
The guilty need not cower, for God has reconciled
through his redemptive power all those who trust this child (LSB #337 v.2).

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.