Good evening! Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus, long prophesied as the Messiah who was to come. There are many Old Testament verses that point to Christ, but I want to just look at one tonight:
This is what God the Lord says—the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: “I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness; I will take hold of Your hand. I will keep You and will make You to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. – Is. 42:5-7
If you listened carefully to this passage, you may have noticed that God promises to make this Person into two things. The first promise of God to make this person into is a covenant. This is a strange idea. How can a person be a covenant? Well, Jesus gives us the answer at the Last Supper, where in Luke 22:20, He says, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.” The Old Covenant was the sacrificial system given to Moses and explained in Exodus and Deuteronomy, where innocent animals were sacrificed to atone for the sin of people. This system was only a shadow of greater things to come, however. The Old Testament sacrificial system was temporary, in the sense that you had to keep sacrificing animals over and over as you continued to sin. It was also ineffective, in that the sinner did not seem to be able to stop continuing to sin, despite the fact that animal after animal was sacrificed; that is, the sacrificial system did not seem to be able to permanently change the sinner. And because of this, it was incapable of truly bringing God and man together; the intimacy with God experienced by Adam “walking with God” in the Garden of Eden was never reproduced. In fact, God was unapproachable. Only the high priest, once a year, after undergoing all kinds of purification practices, could enter the Most Holy Place, where the Presence of God dwelt.
But the New Covenant is different. Jesus, the God-Man, fully man and fully God, also without sin, became the Covenant. That is, He allowed Himself to be sacrificed, through death on a cross, as a once-for-all sacrifice to atone for sin. His incarnation – His coming in the flesh – to Earth, as an infant to be brought up by Mary and Joseph – was necessary for this New Covenant to happen. This Covenant is eternal, not temporary, because the one sacrifice is for all sin forever. And it is effective, not ineffective, because God is working through His Spirit in us to make us become people who never sin again. This process has its beginning in our present lives, but it will find its completion later, when “we will all be changed – in a flash, in a twinkling of an eye”, as we are told in I Cor. 15:51-52. And this change will include changes to our bodies, so that death itself is defeated, and we will be clothed with immortality. And unlike the Old Covenant, the New Covenant will truly bring us and God together. We experience this to a degree now, in how the Holy Spirit lives in us, guides us, teaches us, and comforts us. But we will experience this too in another way, as we will be with and worship the Lamb who was slain, and we will experience true intimacy with God forever.
The second promise of God in this Isaiah passage is to make this Person, whom we know is Jesus, into a light for the Gentiles. What does this mean? Well, the passage itself provides some explanation. This Light for the Gentiles will open eyes that are blind and free captives from prison, release from dungeon those who sit in darkness. Now this is highly symbolic language, so it is fair to again ask the question, what does this mean?
Well, being a Light is a major theme in the Gospel of John. Starting in John 1:4, we are told,
In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:4-5
And then we are given an almost parenthetical comment:
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. – John 1:6-8
But then we get back to the Person who indeed was the light:
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was his own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. – John 1:9-13
And so, although it is true that Jesus literally healed blind people of their blindness while He was on Earth with His disciples, I believe the Isaiah passage has a deeper fulfillment. John says that the world did not recognize Him. But then those that received Him, who believed in His name, became children of God. How? By opening their eyes. And if you are here today as a believer in Christ, He has opened your eyes as well. You are a fulfillment of Isaiah 42.
And, as for freeing captives from prison and releasing from a dungeon those who sit in darkness, I think we could say that how Jesus cast demons out of people was one fulfillment of this passage. We could also point to the Book of Acts, where God miraculously released His followers from jail. But the deeper meaning and fulfillment is again referring to us, to all believers. We sat in darkness, because we did not have the “light” of Christ. And we were captives, prisoners, because we were slaves to sin and we were also headed for eternal separation from God as our sin separated us from Him, and a day was coming when we would be judged for our sins. And apart from God, we were powerless to stop sinning. We were utterly unable to break free from the predicament we had put ourselves into. But through receiving Jesus, believing in His name, we went from prisoners in darkness to children in light.
The theme of the light of God runs throughout Scripture. In Genesis 1:4, God says that the light is good, and He separates the light from the darkness. In Exodus 10, one of the plagues sent against Pharaoh is a plague of darkness. It affects all of Egypt for three days, except where the Israelites are, where there is light. And then as God leads the Israelites in the Exodus, He does so as a pillar of fire, a source of light. In the Tabernacle and then the Temple there are lamps that are burning continually. Light is a frequent theme in Job and in the Psalms. And it is a huge theme in Isaiah – we have looked at one passage but there are many more, and in nearly all of them they point to Christ.
And then we have Jesus. During the transfiguration His face “shone like the sun,” and his clothes became blindingly bright white. And He spoke of Himself as the light, saying for example in John 8:
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” – John 8:12b
And in John 12:
“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should stay in darkness.” – John 12:46
And because this is Christmas Eve, I last turn to Simeon, the old man who was led by the Holy Spirit to go to the temple courts when the Christ child would be there. And he had the rare blessing few people will ever experience, the blessing of picking up his Savior in his arms. And this is what he said:
“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised, You may now dismiss Your servant in peace. for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” – Luke 2:29-32
And so we have one song left to sing, Silent Night, and as is our tradition for many years, we will turn off the lights and sing to the Lord in candlelight. We are incredibly blessed, because we are the beneficiaries of God’s promise in Isaiah 42, where God said [I] will make You to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. Christ Jesus is indeed our covenant and our light. Let us sing to Him.
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