Hope Amidst the Darkness – Isaiah 9:1-7

Hope Amidst the Darkness

When I was in middle school, my mom, an English major, handed me a paperback copy of The Hobbit, and I ended up reading the whole trilogy. While preparing this message I came back to a scene in Return of the King. Sam is weary in the land of Mordor, and he looks up and sees a bright star twinkle through the clouds. Hope returns to him, because the thought pierces him that “the shadow was only a small and passing thing.” That is where Isaiah 9 starts, in the dark.

What If Christmas Is Darker Than We Think?

So much of our Christmas season is about feeling good: the snow, the presents, the carols, the peppermint mochas. For many people it is a feeling, a season, and it is not supernatural. But “what if Christmas isn’t to highlight the joys of life but to shine light on the darkness of it?” In the Bible, “Christmas Comes not on the triumphant shoulders of our put together lives but it comes shining light into the Gloom of the darkness that we can’t get ourselves out of.” Isaiah 9:1-7 gives two promises of hope.

Hope Promised in the Darkness (Verses 1-3)

Isaiah 8 ends with distress and darkness, and the people looked everywhere but to God for light. Israel and Syria asked Judah to join them against Assyria. God told King Ahaz to wait, and Ahaz did not. He paid the Assyrians to fight for him, and the Assyrians took the northern kingdom and then came for Judah too. God’s people were thrust into oppression, and it was going to get worse before it got better.

Then comes the word “but.” Isaiah says there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. I think that is one of the most powerful words in the Bible, because it is the gospel in miniature: “we are Unfaithful but God is faithful we are sinful but God Saves Sinners we are in darkness but light is coming.”

The promise is written as if it has already happened, already but not yet. It is an assurance, not a maybe, and God only asks them to believe him. We can look at the world and see only darkness, or we can remember his past mercies, his present grace, and his future promises. “It sees the light in the darkness.”

The Galileans lived on the road every invader took, so they had a tough life, not just a tough day. They were the first to see the light, and Matthew 4 tells us Jesus began his ministry in Galilee so that this prophecy would be fulfilled. Then in verse 3 Isaiah uses two pictures, the farmer at harvest and the soldier dividing the spoil. Neither did anything to bring it about. “God plants and his people harvest God fights and his people gets the spoils.”

Hope Given in a Child (Verses 4-7)

Isaiah points the people back to Midian. God whittled Gideon’s army from 32,000 down to 300, because “this isn’t your fight Gideon this is my fight.” Verse 5 says every boot and bloody garment will be burned as fuel. God is not only going to win the war, he is going to end war. We get to step onto the battlefield after the victory is won and “celebrate God’s Victory as if it is our own because in Christ it is.”

Then verse 6: “For to us a child is born.” The people were not hoping for that. They wanted someone right now, and God sent a baby. “To them there was nothing in the world weaker than a human child,” yet “there’s also nothing more powerful in this world than a child.” As one author put it, “God has ordered the world such that weakness overcomes power foolishness overcomes wisdom a child defeats all evil.”

His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. That means the government of this world lands on Jesus. “Jesus Will govern us with wisdom we aren’t his counselor he’s ours Jesus is going to govern us with strength.” And “Jesus governs us as a father he cares for us with the affection of a tender father,” in peace with God and with one another.

How Can We Be Sure?

If they had to wait on a child, how could they be sure? Look at the verbs. “God’s people they’re not the subject of any of the verbs.” God is doing this without their help, for their good. “The Zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.” We never reach the limit of God’s strength, and Christmas is a reminder that “God loves to do for his people what they can’t do for themselves.”