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The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. [….] For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. Isaiah 9: 2-7 |
Jersey folk who heard the words in bold above at Carol Services this Christmas may well have been asleep.
Those words are often read in the “Nine Lessons and Carols”. And how wonderfully full of promise they are! They were originally spoken and recorded by Isaiah the Jerusalem prophet around 710 BC. They were initially addressed to Israelites who had lived in Galilee and who had been totally overthrown by the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III in 732 BC.
Deep darkness had enveloped that land inasmuch as that King had immediately repopulated the area with others from his Empire - from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim. The light of God went out in BC 732 but around 712 BC God promised it would be re-lit one day by a great light.
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That great light was to be – is – Jesus (AD 0-32). As Isaiah said above, the light would be a child. "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
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‘War is a tragedy which destroys the stage it is acted on.' (Matthew Henry, Bible Commentator, 1662-1714)
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Born AD 0, he dwelt in Galilee and his entire ministry of teaching and healing was in that favoured area within what is now the State of Israel.
But it’s this sentence which is (to all appearances) stupidly incorrect: "For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire." Surely everyone knows that Galilee itself, this very day, has no peace – 2,000 years after the promised child was born……
Although the “Prince of Peace” has come, there is still no peace – on earth. How dreadfully true that has been throughout 2012: the Arab Spring; Afghanistan; Sudan; economic wars between Western power blocks; similar perhaps-covert intentions between Guernsey and Jersey.
Isaiah even went further than foretelling the cessation of all war when Jesus came. “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.” Tell me, please, because I don’t want to be asleep about this, how I should understand what I’ve heard over Christmas.
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Why does nothing seem to have changed? Did Jesus achieve nothing by way of peace? Is it really “unto us” that this “child is born”?
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‘Jesus treats wars and natural disasters not as agenda items in a discussion but as incentives to repentance.' (D A Carson, writer and teacher, 1948-)
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Maybe we’ve been blind to this peace because it only arises (at present) within the followers of Jesus. Maybe we’ve been busy with the “wars” of this world, like making a living, getting for ourselves and our loved ones, keeping what we’ve got, stopping others taking it from us. Maybe our own wars have occupied us so much that we haven’t known peace?
Maybe we’re all blind like Barabbas on that last day of Jesus’ life AD 33. Barabbas the insurgent had killed so as to bring “peace”, so as to achieve regime-change, so as to overturn Rome in Jerusalem.
Maybe we haven’t seen that Jesus, by taking Barabbas’s place on that cross outside Jerusalem in AD 33, was then able to offer to that killer true peace, true rest from ……Barabbas’s own war within. Because Jesus rose from death, having allowed himself to be conquered and killed, he is able to offer the cessation of war via new life within. He still does.
In the darkness, on those asleep, on those busy with their own “war”, light shines…. And, one day, wars will cease for ever for Jesus’ followers.
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