The wisest men
Commentary
Object:
They are a cherished fixture in the Christmas story. We sing about them, we see them artistically portrayed on Christmas cards, and they are standard fare in every creche, live nativity, and Christmas pageant. They are the wise men and their story is so familiar to us that we may have lost our sense for how surprising it is.
The wise men themselves are surprising, first of all, because they are evidently astrologers, and scripture does not speak favorably of that practice. More than any other gospel writer, Matthew is manifestly concerned with the Old Testament and its fulfillment. For him to highlight characters whose religious practice -- and perhaps even profession -- is so contrary to the standards of the Mosaic Law is quite startling.
Second, the wise men are surprising because they are clearly foreign. One wonders, therefore, why these men from another country would be so interested in one "who has been born king of the Jews." Furthermore, the Christmas event happened at a time when most of the Mediterranean world was under the control of the Roman empire, including little Palestine where Jesus was born. Any king of the Jews, therefore, was likely to be largely irrelevant, even in Israel, let alone on the broader world's stage.
Third, they are surprising characters because of their strange sense of the future. If this king of the Jews is relatively newborn, then his reign and impact are likely to be far down the road. To visit a newly coronated king would make some sense. To visit a newborn king, however, seems to have very little practical purpose.
We don't know their names (though later tradition has suggested a few). We don't know how many there were (though the number of their gifts has solidified the impression that there were three of them) and we are prompted to wonder why they were even there. Their story may be familiar but it remains a surprising one and their story is our story on this Epiphany Sunday.
Isaiah 60:1-6
We see the theme from the beginning to the end of scripture. In the beginning the prevailing darkness is the original context, and "let there be light" is God's first step in creation. And clear at the other end of the story, one of the hallmarks of the new creation is its ever-brightness and the affirmation that the Lord himself is the source of its light.
In between, that duality of light and darkness appears again and again. Isaiah famously prophesies about those "who walked in darkness," yet experienced "a great light" (9:2). Amos juxtaposed light and darkness as a shorthand for what is good and desirable as opposed to what is bad and dreadful (5:18). The Psalmist associated God's word and way with light (119:105), while the wise writer of Proverbs associated the way of the wicked with darkness (2:13; 4:19). In the New Testament, meanwhile, James calls God "the Father of light" (1:17), while life prior to and apart from Christ is characterized in terms of darkness (Ephesians 5:8, 11; 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5; 1 Peter 2:9). Beyond all of that, one could write an entire volume exploring the theme of light and darkness in John's writings alone.
Taken all together, we see that light is associated with God and his work. Consequently, it is also connected to righteousness, truth, and wisdom. Darkness, by contrast, is associated with the devil, and therefore connotes sin, danger, malevolence, folly, and lostness. And here in Isaiah 60, we see the theme again, filled with the kinds of meanings and implications observed across the broader scope of scripture.
Beyond those familiar motifs, however, the light-and-darkness of this Isaiah text presents us with two questions. One is interpretive; the other is pragmatic.
The interpretative question is this: Just who is being addressed? In our English translations, we see a persistent use of the second-person personal pronoun, yet within the context of these six verses the recurring "you" has an indefinite antecedent. Who is to arise? Whose light has come? To whose light shall the nations come? To whom shall the abundant wealth be brought?
A look back at the original Hebrew yields what may be a surprising result. The pronoun consistently used in this passage is second-person-singular, and it is feminine. The audience being addressed, therefore, is not a group and it is not a man. That said, however, the audience is probably not a woman either.
In the final verse, the prophet declares, "A multitude of camels shall cover you," and therein lies our greatest clue about the audience: it must be a place. As we read further beyond the limits of our lection, we see that "foreigners shall build up your walls" (v. 10) and "your gates shall always be open" (v. 11). We surmise, therefore, that this prophecy is addressed to God's city. We might call it Jerusalem, though it would perhaps be more appropriate in Old Testament terms to call it Zion, or in New Testament terms to think of it as the New Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the pragmatic question goes back to the theme of light: What is the relationship between shining and a light coming? That is to say, the audience is told to shine, yet the impetus for that shining seems to be some other light... strange.
It may be that God has built into our experience of creation a metaphor for our role in the world. In our experience, you see, there are two things that rise and shine: the sun and the moon. Yet we have discovered that, while they both provide light to the earth, there is really only one source of the light: the sun. The moon merely reflects the light of the sun.
Interestingly, it is specifically the moon that shines in the darkness, though it offers no light of its own. It has a "borrowed ray"1 and that reflected light is a great gift during the darkness of the night.
So it is with the audience for this exhortation. The call is to arise and shine but not because it has any of its own light to offer. Rather, when "darkness shall cover the earth" the addressees must reflect light -- "for your light has come."
Ephesians 3:1-12
I think it would trouble the apostle Paul to suggest that the subject of almost any paragraph he wrote was something other than Christ. And indeed it could be argued that Christ is, in fact, the subject of virtually everything we have from Paul's hand. For the one who declared that all things hold together in Christ (Colossians 1:17) embodied that conviction in how he lived, how he theologized, and how he wrote.
As we endeavor to unpack this assigned passage, we must give attention to what Paul says about Christ. However, there are two other prominent themes that might also be understood as the subjects of this passage. First there is Paul himself, and second there is the "mystery" to which he makes so many references.
The things Paul says and reveals about himself in these verses would suffice for an entire sermon series. He understands himself as "a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles," a servant of the gospel, and "the least of all the saints." At the same time, he sees that he has received several things: a revelation of "the mystery of Christ," a commission, and the grace "to bring the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ." That is a profound self-portrait, and it provides a fair outline for any study of the life and ministry of Paul.
Meanwhile, the apostle's recurring references to "mystery" may be off-putting for our contemporary audiences. It suggests that God is somehow being deliberately coy, as though he were trying to keep something from us. Of course, that seems to be directly in contrast to the gospel truth of a God who is eager to offer things to us and to all the world! And so the word may deserve some explanation.
The underlying Greek word, musterion, appears 21 times in Paul's letters and he uses it in several ways. Broadly speaking, however, it seems to me that we misunderstand Paul's use of the term when we think of it with "top secret" connotations. Rather, I envision a small group of people camping in some remote place, looking up at the starry sky on a clear, dark night and speaking of the "mysteries" of the universe. Such mystery is not as much about secrecy as it is about that which inspires us to marvel and to wonder; that which we relish, on the one hand, while acknowledging that it is beyond our comprehension on the other.
So J. Clinton McCann writes, "In a real sense, the 'mystery' for Paul is Christ himself... (And) as Ephesians 3:3-6 makes clear, this 'mystery' means specifically that 'the Gentiles have become fellow heirs' (3:6). In essence, God's world-encompassing work in Christ constitutes 'the mystery of the gospel.' "2
And so we come back to the One who is always Paul's subject and central theme: Jesus Christ. He is the one at whom we marvel, for the promises and purposes of God are fulfilled in him. "Boundless riches" are found in him. The church is bound together as one body in him and "we have access to God" in him.
Matthew 2:1-12
Herod is the unwelcome character in the Christmas story. We have seen the poor, anonymous innkeeper portrayed as something of a villain in Christmas pageants along the way but his failure is nothing compared to Herod's malice. It is Herod who takes the sweetness of the Christmas story and spatters it with blood.
This is Herod the Great, whose political maneuverings had him cozying up to both Mark Antony and Octavian, the latter of whom eventually became the Caesar Augustus of Luke's Christmas account. This is the Herod who sought and gained the title "King of the Jews," even though he himself was Idumean. He was an ambitious and accomplished man, as well as insanely jealous and cruel.
Many of Herod's building efforts still mark the landscape of Israel 2,000 years later, and he was the individual largely responsible for the temple that Jesus and the early Christians would have known. At the same time, he was ruthless in how he dealt with opposition -- even perceived opposition -- including the executions of one of his wives and two of his sons. Against that backdrop, then, it is not hard to believe Herod's duplicitous and brutal behavior in this episode.
The fault, if we may call it that, begins with the wise men. They had faithfully followed the star all the way from their home country (likely Babylon or Persia) to within a few miles of the child Jesus and we gather that the star did eventually lead them exactly to the right place. It may be, however, that they momentarily gave up the star's guidance when they got near Jerusalem. After all, if they were convinced that the one they sought was born to be "king of the Jews," then Jerusalem would have been the logical destination for them. After all, Jerusalem was the capital. That's where the palace and the current king resided. Why look any further?
Thus, in a tragic error, the wise men took their search for the new king to one of the most notoriously paranoid and vindictive kings in history. And Herod responded with predictable calculation and action. He sought to find the would-be usurper and put an end to him.
Fascinatingly, in the midst of the magi's pilgrimage and Herod's intrigues we have a strange interlude with "the chief priests and scribes of the people." If we are reading the New Testament from cover to cover this is our first introduction to these characters and what we see of them here proves to be consistent with what we see throughout the rest of the gospels. Namely, they are in an excellent position to recognize who Jesus is, yet instead of coming to him and worshiping him themselves, they participate in an effort to kill him.
Between the two gospel accounts of Christmas, we see that all signs pointed to Bethlehem. In the case of the shepherds in Luke's account, the angelic messenger pointed the way. In the case of these wise men, meanwhile, both a celestial sign and the scriptures combined to identify Bethlehem as the site of God's special activity.
When they finally arrive at their long-awaited, long-sought destination, the wise men present their three gifts to the child. It is the number of their gifts, of course, that has given rise to the tradition that the wise men themselves were three in number, though the text never says as much. As to the gifts themselves, it is hard to improve upon the poetic interpretation offered by John H. Hopkins Jr. in his familiar hymn We Three Kings.
Application
So what are we to make of these surprising wise men? They are, for the reasons highlighted above, unlikely co-stars in a show that is ostensibly about the birth of the Jewish Messiah. We don't know their names, what they did before that holy night, or what became of them afterward. But for that one brief moment they meaningfully crossed paths with the Christ, and they emerge as some of the most well-known and best-loved characters in scripture as a result.
In truth, of course, it is their very unlikeliness that makes the wise men so significant.
I don't think that Matthew is tacitly endorsing the very astrology that the Old Testament Law condemns. He might remind us, though, that "the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). It should not surprise us that the one whose nature can be understood through the things he has made (Romans 1:20) might also reveal his Son through that same creation. So the magi were uniquely equipped to discover the work of God in this case.
Interestingly, those wise men are set in contrast to the more natural audience for the arrival of the Messiah: namely, the chief priests and scribes of Matthew 2:4. One would think that they, the devout Jews living in Israel and studying the scriptures, would have been the ones to seek and find the Christ. In a foreshadowing of the events to come in the gospels and Acts, however, the natural audience is indifferent -- at times even hostile -- while the unlikelier ones come to Christ. The Isaiah passage makes us think of the wise men because it says that "they shall bring gold and frankincense" but the larger truth is the earlier affirmation that "nations shall come to your light" and this is echoed by Paul's statement that "the Gentiles have become fellow heirs."
If the Christ were parochial and proprietary, then these wise men from the East would have no purpose in seeking "the child who has been born king of the Jews." But he is also the Creator of the universe, including the stars that they studied and he himself is the light in a dark world that will draw all nations, not just Israel, to himself. Finally, he is the one who will be king, not of the Jews only, but King of kings and Lord of lords. The surprise, therefore, is not that the wise man should come to him. The surprise is that anyone does not.
An Alternative Application
Isaiah 60:1-6. "Drawn to the Light." The prediction is that "darkness shall cover the earth" and yet light is not entirely absent. On the contrary, the audience addressed in Isaiah 60 is called upon to shine and to shine in response to the fact that "your light has come." So it seems that there is both darkness and light: side-by-side in the passage, and perhaps side-by-side in the world Isaiah is describing.
The juxtaposition is reminiscent of the scene we see at Creation. The Bible says that God separated the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:4). When we stop to reflect on it, it doesn't seem like a necessary thing to do. What, after all, is the alternative? How could darkness and light not be separate? Yet scripture reports that God separates the two, and they have been separate ever since. Think, for example, of the plague of darkness in Egypt (Exodus 10:21-23), and how the light (where the Hebrews were) was separate in the midst of the darkness (where the Egyptians were). John wrote that the light shines in the darkness and was not extinguished by it (John 1:5). And Jesus declared that both he (John 8:12) and his followers (Matthew 5:14-16) were the light of the world, which itself is in darkness.
So Isaiah foresees that the earth and its peoples shall be covered in thick darkness. It's a terrifying prospect and we all know the reflex of people who find themselves in darkness.
We've known the discomfort of walking on a dark street or driving on a dark road. We've felt the minor panic when the electricity is knocked out and we're left groping for some source of light. We know the disorientation of fumbling in a dark room, hallway, or basement, trying to find the light switch. In short, when we human beings are in darkness, we long for some light.
Hence the call for God's people to arise and shine! We have no light of our own, of course. Rather, as we noted above, God is our source of light and we shine in response to him -- like the moon shines in response to the sun. As we become radiant, the Lord promises that "nations shall come to your light." Of course they will. For when people are in the dark, they long for -- and are drawn to! -- the light.
__________
1. George Matheson, "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" (United Methodist Hymnal #480).
2. J. Clinton McCann, The Westminster Theological Wordbook of the Bible, Donald E. Gowan, Editor (John Knox Press, 2003), p. 337.
The wise men themselves are surprising, first of all, because they are evidently astrologers, and scripture does not speak favorably of that practice. More than any other gospel writer, Matthew is manifestly concerned with the Old Testament and its fulfillment. For him to highlight characters whose religious practice -- and perhaps even profession -- is so contrary to the standards of the Mosaic Law is quite startling.
Second, the wise men are surprising because they are clearly foreign. One wonders, therefore, why these men from another country would be so interested in one "who has been born king of the Jews." Furthermore, the Christmas event happened at a time when most of the Mediterranean world was under the control of the Roman empire, including little Palestine where Jesus was born. Any king of the Jews, therefore, was likely to be largely irrelevant, even in Israel, let alone on the broader world's stage.
Third, they are surprising characters because of their strange sense of the future. If this king of the Jews is relatively newborn, then his reign and impact are likely to be far down the road. To visit a newly coronated king would make some sense. To visit a newborn king, however, seems to have very little practical purpose.
We don't know their names (though later tradition has suggested a few). We don't know how many there were (though the number of their gifts has solidified the impression that there were three of them) and we are prompted to wonder why they were even there. Their story may be familiar but it remains a surprising one and their story is our story on this Epiphany Sunday.
Isaiah 60:1-6
We see the theme from the beginning to the end of scripture. In the beginning the prevailing darkness is the original context, and "let there be light" is God's first step in creation. And clear at the other end of the story, one of the hallmarks of the new creation is its ever-brightness and the affirmation that the Lord himself is the source of its light.
In between, that duality of light and darkness appears again and again. Isaiah famously prophesies about those "who walked in darkness," yet experienced "a great light" (9:2). Amos juxtaposed light and darkness as a shorthand for what is good and desirable as opposed to what is bad and dreadful (5:18). The Psalmist associated God's word and way with light (119:105), while the wise writer of Proverbs associated the way of the wicked with darkness (2:13; 4:19). In the New Testament, meanwhile, James calls God "the Father of light" (1:17), while life prior to and apart from Christ is characterized in terms of darkness (Ephesians 5:8, 11; 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5; 1 Peter 2:9). Beyond all of that, one could write an entire volume exploring the theme of light and darkness in John's writings alone.
Taken all together, we see that light is associated with God and his work. Consequently, it is also connected to righteousness, truth, and wisdom. Darkness, by contrast, is associated with the devil, and therefore connotes sin, danger, malevolence, folly, and lostness. And here in Isaiah 60, we see the theme again, filled with the kinds of meanings and implications observed across the broader scope of scripture.
Beyond those familiar motifs, however, the light-and-darkness of this Isaiah text presents us with two questions. One is interpretive; the other is pragmatic.
The interpretative question is this: Just who is being addressed? In our English translations, we see a persistent use of the second-person personal pronoun, yet within the context of these six verses the recurring "you" has an indefinite antecedent. Who is to arise? Whose light has come? To whose light shall the nations come? To whom shall the abundant wealth be brought?
A look back at the original Hebrew yields what may be a surprising result. The pronoun consistently used in this passage is second-person-singular, and it is feminine. The audience being addressed, therefore, is not a group and it is not a man. That said, however, the audience is probably not a woman either.
In the final verse, the prophet declares, "A multitude of camels shall cover you," and therein lies our greatest clue about the audience: it must be a place. As we read further beyond the limits of our lection, we see that "foreigners shall build up your walls" (v. 10) and "your gates shall always be open" (v. 11). We surmise, therefore, that this prophecy is addressed to God's city. We might call it Jerusalem, though it would perhaps be more appropriate in Old Testament terms to call it Zion, or in New Testament terms to think of it as the New Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, the pragmatic question goes back to the theme of light: What is the relationship between shining and a light coming? That is to say, the audience is told to shine, yet the impetus for that shining seems to be some other light... strange.
It may be that God has built into our experience of creation a metaphor for our role in the world. In our experience, you see, there are two things that rise and shine: the sun and the moon. Yet we have discovered that, while they both provide light to the earth, there is really only one source of the light: the sun. The moon merely reflects the light of the sun.
Interestingly, it is specifically the moon that shines in the darkness, though it offers no light of its own. It has a "borrowed ray"1 and that reflected light is a great gift during the darkness of the night.
So it is with the audience for this exhortation. The call is to arise and shine but not because it has any of its own light to offer. Rather, when "darkness shall cover the earth" the addressees must reflect light -- "for your light has come."
Ephesians 3:1-12
I think it would trouble the apostle Paul to suggest that the subject of almost any paragraph he wrote was something other than Christ. And indeed it could be argued that Christ is, in fact, the subject of virtually everything we have from Paul's hand. For the one who declared that all things hold together in Christ (Colossians 1:17) embodied that conviction in how he lived, how he theologized, and how he wrote.
As we endeavor to unpack this assigned passage, we must give attention to what Paul says about Christ. However, there are two other prominent themes that might also be understood as the subjects of this passage. First there is Paul himself, and second there is the "mystery" to which he makes so many references.
The things Paul says and reveals about himself in these verses would suffice for an entire sermon series. He understands himself as "a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles," a servant of the gospel, and "the least of all the saints." At the same time, he sees that he has received several things: a revelation of "the mystery of Christ," a commission, and the grace "to bring the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ." That is a profound self-portrait, and it provides a fair outline for any study of the life and ministry of Paul.
Meanwhile, the apostle's recurring references to "mystery" may be off-putting for our contemporary audiences. It suggests that God is somehow being deliberately coy, as though he were trying to keep something from us. Of course, that seems to be directly in contrast to the gospel truth of a God who is eager to offer things to us and to all the world! And so the word may deserve some explanation.
The underlying Greek word, musterion, appears 21 times in Paul's letters and he uses it in several ways. Broadly speaking, however, it seems to me that we misunderstand Paul's use of the term when we think of it with "top secret" connotations. Rather, I envision a small group of people camping in some remote place, looking up at the starry sky on a clear, dark night and speaking of the "mysteries" of the universe. Such mystery is not as much about secrecy as it is about that which inspires us to marvel and to wonder; that which we relish, on the one hand, while acknowledging that it is beyond our comprehension on the other.
So J. Clinton McCann writes, "In a real sense, the 'mystery' for Paul is Christ himself... (And) as Ephesians 3:3-6 makes clear, this 'mystery' means specifically that 'the Gentiles have become fellow heirs' (3:6). In essence, God's world-encompassing work in Christ constitutes 'the mystery of the gospel.' "2
And so we come back to the One who is always Paul's subject and central theme: Jesus Christ. He is the one at whom we marvel, for the promises and purposes of God are fulfilled in him. "Boundless riches" are found in him. The church is bound together as one body in him and "we have access to God" in him.
Matthew 2:1-12
Herod is the unwelcome character in the Christmas story. We have seen the poor, anonymous innkeeper portrayed as something of a villain in Christmas pageants along the way but his failure is nothing compared to Herod's malice. It is Herod who takes the sweetness of the Christmas story and spatters it with blood.
This is Herod the Great, whose political maneuverings had him cozying up to both Mark Antony and Octavian, the latter of whom eventually became the Caesar Augustus of Luke's Christmas account. This is the Herod who sought and gained the title "King of the Jews," even though he himself was Idumean. He was an ambitious and accomplished man, as well as insanely jealous and cruel.
Many of Herod's building efforts still mark the landscape of Israel 2,000 years later, and he was the individual largely responsible for the temple that Jesus and the early Christians would have known. At the same time, he was ruthless in how he dealt with opposition -- even perceived opposition -- including the executions of one of his wives and two of his sons. Against that backdrop, then, it is not hard to believe Herod's duplicitous and brutal behavior in this episode.
The fault, if we may call it that, begins with the wise men. They had faithfully followed the star all the way from their home country (likely Babylon or Persia) to within a few miles of the child Jesus and we gather that the star did eventually lead them exactly to the right place. It may be, however, that they momentarily gave up the star's guidance when they got near Jerusalem. After all, if they were convinced that the one they sought was born to be "king of the Jews," then Jerusalem would have been the logical destination for them. After all, Jerusalem was the capital. That's where the palace and the current king resided. Why look any further?
Thus, in a tragic error, the wise men took their search for the new king to one of the most notoriously paranoid and vindictive kings in history. And Herod responded with predictable calculation and action. He sought to find the would-be usurper and put an end to him.
Fascinatingly, in the midst of the magi's pilgrimage and Herod's intrigues we have a strange interlude with "the chief priests and scribes of the people." If we are reading the New Testament from cover to cover this is our first introduction to these characters and what we see of them here proves to be consistent with what we see throughout the rest of the gospels. Namely, they are in an excellent position to recognize who Jesus is, yet instead of coming to him and worshiping him themselves, they participate in an effort to kill him.
Between the two gospel accounts of Christmas, we see that all signs pointed to Bethlehem. In the case of the shepherds in Luke's account, the angelic messenger pointed the way. In the case of these wise men, meanwhile, both a celestial sign and the scriptures combined to identify Bethlehem as the site of God's special activity.
When they finally arrive at their long-awaited, long-sought destination, the wise men present their three gifts to the child. It is the number of their gifts, of course, that has given rise to the tradition that the wise men themselves were three in number, though the text never says as much. As to the gifts themselves, it is hard to improve upon the poetic interpretation offered by John H. Hopkins Jr. in his familiar hymn We Three Kings.
Application
So what are we to make of these surprising wise men? They are, for the reasons highlighted above, unlikely co-stars in a show that is ostensibly about the birth of the Jewish Messiah. We don't know their names, what they did before that holy night, or what became of them afterward. But for that one brief moment they meaningfully crossed paths with the Christ, and they emerge as some of the most well-known and best-loved characters in scripture as a result.
In truth, of course, it is their very unlikeliness that makes the wise men so significant.
I don't think that Matthew is tacitly endorsing the very astrology that the Old Testament Law condemns. He might remind us, though, that "the heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). It should not surprise us that the one whose nature can be understood through the things he has made (Romans 1:20) might also reveal his Son through that same creation. So the magi were uniquely equipped to discover the work of God in this case.
Interestingly, those wise men are set in contrast to the more natural audience for the arrival of the Messiah: namely, the chief priests and scribes of Matthew 2:4. One would think that they, the devout Jews living in Israel and studying the scriptures, would have been the ones to seek and find the Christ. In a foreshadowing of the events to come in the gospels and Acts, however, the natural audience is indifferent -- at times even hostile -- while the unlikelier ones come to Christ. The Isaiah passage makes us think of the wise men because it says that "they shall bring gold and frankincense" but the larger truth is the earlier affirmation that "nations shall come to your light" and this is echoed by Paul's statement that "the Gentiles have become fellow heirs."
If the Christ were parochial and proprietary, then these wise men from the East would have no purpose in seeking "the child who has been born king of the Jews." But he is also the Creator of the universe, including the stars that they studied and he himself is the light in a dark world that will draw all nations, not just Israel, to himself. Finally, he is the one who will be king, not of the Jews only, but King of kings and Lord of lords. The surprise, therefore, is not that the wise man should come to him. The surprise is that anyone does not.
An Alternative Application
Isaiah 60:1-6. "Drawn to the Light." The prediction is that "darkness shall cover the earth" and yet light is not entirely absent. On the contrary, the audience addressed in Isaiah 60 is called upon to shine and to shine in response to the fact that "your light has come." So it seems that there is both darkness and light: side-by-side in the passage, and perhaps side-by-side in the world Isaiah is describing.
The juxtaposition is reminiscent of the scene we see at Creation. The Bible says that God separated the light from the darkness (Genesis 1:4). When we stop to reflect on it, it doesn't seem like a necessary thing to do. What, after all, is the alternative? How could darkness and light not be separate? Yet scripture reports that God separates the two, and they have been separate ever since. Think, for example, of the plague of darkness in Egypt (Exodus 10:21-23), and how the light (where the Hebrews were) was separate in the midst of the darkness (where the Egyptians were). John wrote that the light shines in the darkness and was not extinguished by it (John 1:5). And Jesus declared that both he (John 8:12) and his followers (Matthew 5:14-16) were the light of the world, which itself is in darkness.
So Isaiah foresees that the earth and its peoples shall be covered in thick darkness. It's a terrifying prospect and we all know the reflex of people who find themselves in darkness.
We've known the discomfort of walking on a dark street or driving on a dark road. We've felt the minor panic when the electricity is knocked out and we're left groping for some source of light. We know the disorientation of fumbling in a dark room, hallway, or basement, trying to find the light switch. In short, when we human beings are in darkness, we long for some light.
Hence the call for God's people to arise and shine! We have no light of our own, of course. Rather, as we noted above, God is our source of light and we shine in response to him -- like the moon shines in response to the sun. As we become radiant, the Lord promises that "nations shall come to your light." Of course they will. For when people are in the dark, they long for -- and are drawn to! -- the light.
__________
1. George Matheson, "O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go" (United Methodist Hymnal #480).
2. J. Clinton McCann, The Westminster Theological Wordbook of the Bible, Donald E. Gowan, Editor (John Knox Press, 2003), p. 337.
