A Great Light Has Dawned
Isaiah chapter 9 begins with a very hopeful picture of a coming savior. Isaiah says that a great light is dawning in the land of deep darkness. This great light refers to Jesus and Isaiah says that he will increase the joy of the people and he will defeat Israel’s oppressors. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. This coming king will reign forever and will bring everlasting peace, justice, and righteousness to the world.
This all sounds amazing, but then after 7 verses of hope, Isaiah spends the next 14 verses (twice as much) talking about the Lord’s anger and judgment against Israel for their persistent wickedness. He describes all the curses that are coming their way and then three times, Isaiah says, “Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away, his hand is still upraised.” This phrase appears a fourth time in chapter 10 as if to say “And even after all this, I am still angry with you.” Where is this peace that Isaiah just prophesied a few verses earlier? I’m imagining all the people hearing Isaiah’s words for the first time and saying, “Can we go back to talking about peace again?”
God had promised that if the people would be obedient, he would bless the land and things would go well for them (Deuteronomy 6:3). However, when they repeatedly did not obey, things did not go well for them and they ended up forfeiting the peace that God wanted to bring them. God does not take sin lightly and must punish severely, but he offers hope that a day is coming when all will be made right through the coming messiah. What can make God’s anger finally turn away? Only Jesus. On a land living in great darkness, a light has dawned.
Today, we are still waiting for this promised peace. Jesus has come and has paid the price to defeat sin and death, but our world is still far from perfect. It can be tempting at times to wonder what really changed. Our world is just as messed up now as it was then, if not even more so. While we are still waiting for the day when all will be made right, for those who have put their faith in Jesus and committed to following him, we now have the blessing that God is no longer against us, but for us. His hand is no longer waiting to punish us, but his hand is extended out to us to help us.
———About the art———
Today was a restful day for me without much going on (which is rare), so I gave myself a personal little creative project. As an added challenge, I wanted to see if I could design something entirely using my iPad and not opening my computer at all.
This artwork is something I have been working on all day today. The smoke rising across the land and the dark sky above symbolize the brokenness and darkness the people are living in. In the middle of it all is a manger scene with a light coming out from it symbolizing the glimmer of hope that is coming into the world. In the background is a cross remembering the price Jesus came to pay and a sun rising behind it all symbolizing a new hope dawning into the broken world. At the top right is the Christmas star, which honestly, I didn’t put a lot of thought into the meaning of, but it didn’t feel right to have a Christmas image without it.
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2).