“Darkness Covers the Earth, but the Light of Christ Shines!” Sermon on Isaiah 8:19-9:2 Epiphany 3, A January 19 & 22, 2016

1. “Deep guile and great might / Are his dread arms in fight.” In Luther’s famous hymn, we sing about the Old Evil Foe’s tactics in temptation. “Guile” means deception, and we see it in the very first temptation. “You will not surely die. … For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5). That was deception by being technically correct, but deceiving. “Your eyes will be opened,” not to new wisdom, but staring in horror, “what did we just do.” “Knowing good and evil…” Good as what they had been, and evil as what they had now become. Today’s lesson from Isaiah shows us a different kind of It’s the guile of a counterfeit, a fake. Fake solutions. Fake enlightenment. Fake salvation. Like counterfeit money, it resembles the real thing, but resemblance is where it ends. It has no real value. Like counterfeit money, it also has no authority.
2. That’s what Isaiah is writing about in Chapter 8. You would think that people living in Jerusalem and Judah would have some appreciation for their privilege—living in the Promised Land. At that time they would have enjoyed the glory of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. And they had Isaiah, one of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets—the greatest if you are rating prophets by what they foretold about Jesus the Messiah. Instead, what do we see? We see people running to counterfeits. Counterfeit enlightenment. Counterfeit prophets. “Consult the mediums and the spiritists, who whisper and mutter.” It is what God prohibited in the Second Commandment, “practicing superstition” or “witchcraft.” These things aren’t really a misuse of God’s name, but a use of something else in place of God’s name. A counterfeit. You might remember Saul, the first king of Israel went to one of these mediums to talk to the prophet Samuel. What is sad is that Saul didn’t listen to Samuel when he was alive. Now he wants to hear from him when he’s dead?!
3. Mediums and spiritists are still around. If you drive into Madison on Washington Avenue, about four or five blocks before the capitol on the right there is a sign in front of a house advertising palm reading and other fortune telling. In Wonewoc, Wisconsin, where I went to St. Paul’s Lutheran School, there is still a spiritualist camp. People still practice these things. I recently read a book (Afraid) that said that many people like the word “I’m a spiritual person, but not a religious person.” Usually that means that they want to be eclectic in their practice of faith. Use a little of this, a little of that. A few psalms or favorite passages from the Bible here, a horoscope there, carrying a magic charm or amulet for luck there, and seeing a fortune teller. What’s wrong with that? Well, if the definition of faith is trust, then your trust is divided. Instead of trusting God above all things or God alone, you trust many things as the source of guidance and enlightenment. And are these things enlightenment? Hardly. At best, these things are fake. At the worst, there may be some power of the devil in it. And even when they are fake, the devil can use them to divide and distract our faith and trust. Long ago, after my grandpa died, a neighbor told my grandma, “Go up to that spiritualist camp. Talk to one of the mediums. I’m sure Walter would come through for you.” Grandma didn’t go. I have no idea what kind of message they would have supposedly given her from Grandpa or about him. But could you get any message about Grandpa that would be better than the words of Jesus, “Let not your hearts be troubled. … I go to prepare a place for you… [so] that where I am you may be also” (John 14). “Those who live and believe in me will never die” (John 11). Isaiah’s words are for our ears, too. “When they tell you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists, who whisper and mutter,” shouldn’t a people seek their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰Turn to the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them.”
4. Isaiah also said, “They will pass through the land, distressed and starving, but when this happens and they are starving, they will be frustrated, and they will curse their king and their God.” Isaiah is writing about the condition of their souls—hungry and starving because they aren’t being fed. Think of the wonderful word-pictures Jesus used about himself and his Word: ““I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37-38) “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). It isn’t politically correct, but it’s true nonetheless. People without Christ are in darkness. Without Christ, there is no forgiveness or pardon from God. That’s why Isaiah pictures the people of the nations starving and stumbling around in the darkness. Spiritually, they have nothing. And the Devil’s tactic is to keep people starving spiritually and keep them in the dark spiritually so that they will be forever hungering and searching. But Jesus feeds us. Jesus shines his light on us.
5. When Jesus was calling his disciples, he was feeding them and enlightening them. When he said, “I will make you fishers of men,” he was preparing them to go out and shine the light on those living in darkness. As Isaiah said in prophecy and as Matthew quoted in fulfillment: “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and on those dwelling in the region and the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Jesus begins his ministry where his cousin John left off: “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is near.” As Mark records these same events, he adds that Jesus also said, “Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). Repent. Turn away from the world. Turn away from the devil. Turn away from self. Stop hurting others with your selfish words and actions. Believe the good news. God forgives. He has sent Jesus to bear your sin for you (that was John the Baptist’s other sermon), and because of Jesus, you have the status of a child of God. In Jesus you have the power not just to be forgiven, but to live forgiven, empowered and equipped to resist temptation and to rise above who we are—to rise above our broken, weak, sinful nature and to love. When we feel we don’t have it in us—we’re right. The power to love and the power to serve come from God alone. As St. John wrote, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
6. John’s first letter talks about living in the light—it also talks about our struggle with the darkness. Based on human strength alone, what St. John writes is impossible: “If anyone keeps God’s word, the love of God is truly made complete in him. This is how we know that we are in him: ⁶The one who says he remains in him should walk as Jesus walked.” But with Christ, we ae not stuck in the failures. He overcomes them with forgiveness. He puts it behind us. And he equips us to overcome so that we don’t continue to sin (1 John 3:6), but walk in the light as he is in the light (1 John 1:7).

Amen.

Isaiah 8:19-9:2

¹⁹When they tell you, “Consult the mediums and the spiritists, who whisper and mutter,” shouldn’t a people seek their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? ²⁰Turn to the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there will be no dawn for them. ²¹They will pass through the land, distressed and starving, but when this happens and they are starving, they will be frustrated, and they will curse their king and their God. They will turn their faces upward, ²²and they will look down to the ground, but listen: They will see only distress, darkness, and the gloom that brings anguish. They will be banished into thick darkness. ^9:1On the other hand, there will be no more gloom for the one who was in anguish. In the former time, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will cause it to be glorious, along the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. ²The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned. (EHV)