A new light is shining in the darkness

Advent 2025, Week 4 – John’s Light of Christmas Past/Present/Future, Part 2

What is the darkness in your life?  Maybe it is in a relationship.  Maybe it is inside you, like anxiety, which is a part of my life, or depression.  These long dark nights, like yesterday, the winter solstice.  The longest, darkest night of the year.  It can affect us.  The cold.  Maybe your darkness is financial.  Maybe a habit you just can’t seem to kick.  Maybe a negative, bitter, complaining attitude through which you view things in your life, and it is affecting your daily life and relationships.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  John 1:4-5

In this verse a new light is shining in the darkness.  There is hope.

John is saying, “We need a new creation story, because of Jesus.”  Jesus is creator, and Jesus is the light shining in the darkness.  That’s different than the original creation story, but just as true. 

By saying that Jesus is the light, John is directing our attention to all sorts of imagery about light.  Not just the light of creation.  But the light of the pillar of fire that guided the nation of Israel on their journey to the promised land.  The light of the Bethlehem star. 

All of these symbolized something.  Yes there was a physical light, but in Jesus that light is symbolic, as he is, John says, the light of life. 

When we are in darkness, we can feel dead.  Or we feel like death warmed over.  We can feel exhausted, paralyzed, stuck.  Or like me when I was a kid coming up from the basement, rushing up the stairs because it felt like the darkness was literally nipping at my heels.  A lack of light symbolizes death.  The valley of the shadow of death. You know the darkness you feel in your life.  And you long for life to enter that dying situation.

Yet, Jesus, John tells us, is the bringer of light and life, and Jesus himself brings that life.  In Jesus is life.  He said that he came to bring eternal life in the future and abundant life now.  More on that in a moment.

For the time being, notice that we are talking about the light of Christmas past.  John is saying that Jesus brought a new kind of light, the light of life, when he was born.  Jesus’ real human birth was God taking on flesh, an astounding new hope for new life.  John puts it this way just a few verses later in John 1:9, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

After reminding his readers of the light of Christmas past, John writes about the light of Christmas present, and we’ll learn about that in the next post.

Photo by Mehran Biabani on Unsplash

Do you feel comfort and/or anxiety in God’s presence?

Advent 2025, Week 3: Psalm 139, Part 2

This guest post is by Molly Stouffer, a ministry student at Regent University.

In Psalm 139, verse 11, David writes, “Darkness shall cover me.”

The word, “cover,” in the Hebrew is the same word that’s used all the way back in Genesis 3:15, when God is speaking to Adam and Eve, after they sinned. God tells them that their offspring “strike the head of the enemy.” This is the first time God refers to someone who was going to come and save the world. It is the first message of the gospel. The same Hebrew is translated “strike.”

In Psalm 139, that word is translated “cover.” This gives us the sense that the darkness that’s described here is like a thick, heavy blanket that’s laid across us, covering all sense of light. David is painting a picture for us.

In the previous post, I asked you to imagine a scenario of being in a dark, strange room in the middle of the night. I’m going to keep revisiting that scene to help us understand what God’s trying to say in Psalm 139. For example, I mentioned that David seems to be writing about hiding in the darkness. But is this verse really about fleeing? Having this impulse to just go from God? But go where? I don’t think it is.

I don’t think we can flee. All of Psalm 139 is about how deeply, personally God knows us. The verses leading up to verse eleven talk about this overwhelming and always present God.

That’s our God. His presence. His spirit. We can’t flee from it. Look at what David writes in verse 7, “Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” His point is that we can’t flee.

Then in verse 11 he acknowledges that idea, almost as if David is joking by saying, “The dark is so piercing, and I can’t see anything. Even the light feels dark.”

David here has finally been crowned king. And he’s experiencing God’s light after what may have been many countless years of waiting. So, this verse isn’t a desire to go away from the Lord.

It’s this introduction and this acknowledgement of the reality of God’s omnipresence, his constant never-ending, never-ending, never-changing presence. He never leaves us. There isn’t anywhere that we could go to flee from him.

On the blog last year, we studied the life of David. He had his fair share of moments where he might have wanted to flee far from God. And yet, in every moment of his life and in ours, God is present.

When I say this, you’re likely going to feel one of two things. The first being that you’re going to have a sigh of relief moment where your shoulders kind of drop and you let out a sigh. You can acknowledge in your heart that “God’s never going to leave me. There isn’t anything I could do to make him leave.” And that’s a comfort.

But on the other hand, the second option is that you might tense up a little bit. You may bite your lip or grit your teeth or have a feeling of anxiety in your chest. Knowing that you can never flee from God might make you worried. You can’t hide from him. You can’t disguise yourself or put on a mask.

But at the same time, you could be feeling both relief and anxiety. We can’t put on a disguise from him because he knows us and he will never leave us. His presence is constant.

That feeling, knowing that we can’t put on a disguise, goes both ways. We can’t pretend to be something that we’re not, whether that’s good or bad, because God sees us at a heart level. And whether your disguise is something you would disguise as Christian or not, God sees you at your heart level, beneath everything.

This may be a comfort to you that you don’t have to put on a get up, that you can come to him exactly as you are right now, and he’ll lovingly embrace you. Or it might be terrifying that God sees you exactly where you are right now. But I want to encourage you, though, to lean into that first feeling that we have the ability to come to him right now.

Whether we’re broken or not, we can come to him exactly as we are in this moment. We don’t have to put on an act. Find peace in the fact that your maker loves you and knows you so deeply and personally. His light sees through us, and he knows us down to the depths of our souls.

And that truth leads into the next verse of Psalm 139, which we’ll study in the next post.

Photo by Ahtziri Lagarde on Unsplash

Difficult family relationships at the holidays

Advent 2025, Week 4 – John’s Light of Christmas Past/Present/Future, Part 1

I have a friend from college who, together with his wife, have experienced numerous difficulties in parenting.  Our kids are about the same age, and they even had three boys then a girl just like us.  One of their sons married, then soon divorced.  One struggled with addiction and died from an overdose.  Most recently, they’ve experienced the ups and downs of parenting their teenage daughter. 

Those ups and downs included numerous parent–child battles, changing schools to deal with bullying, and most recently the loss of her driver’s license.

Parenting can be hard.  Parenting teens can be really hard. Family relationships in general can be hard.  Maybe your holiday gatherings have already begun.  Maybe you’re looking forward to them. Maybe there’s drama and pain in your family. Probably a mix of both.

This week we’re going to look at Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future, but without the ghosts in Charles Dickens’ book A Christmas Carol.

For our Christmas past, present, and future, we’re going to follow the writings of one of Jesus’ disciples, the one whom some scholars consider to be Jesus’ closest friend.  John.  John has something to say about Jesus’ past, present, and future, and I think it will provide some hope and encouragement to those difficult relationships.

John wrote a lot of the New Testament.  His writing style has led some to call him the Dr. Seuss of the NT.  You know how Dr. Seuss used only a few words, repeated a lot?  John is like that. 

One of the words John repeats frequently is the word “light.” 

In John 1, verses 1 through 3:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Look at the first verse.  What famous Old Testament verse does it remind you of? 

Genesis 1:1.  “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Notice how John is basically saying, “We need to expand that Genesis story a bit. Yes, God created.  But what we now know is that Jesus is God, and therefore Jesus, God the Son, was a part of that creative process.” 

Think back to Genesis 1, and what is the first thing God created? “Let there be … what?” 

Light!

So far, in verses 1–3, though, John hasn’t mentioned light.

He’s about to. In fact, he will say something surprisingly different about light, when compared to the original Genesis account of creation. We learn what John says about light in the next post.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Jesus’ parable that inspired Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

Advent 2025, Week 4 – Light of Christmas Past/Present/Future, Preview

Will you watch a dramatization of Charles Dickens’ famous A Christmas Carol this holiday season?  Some literary scholars believe that Dickens’ source material is one of Jesus’ parables.  What parable do you think might have sparked Dickens’ imagination to think about ghosts?  Does Jesus have any parables featuring ghosts who help people think about the ramifications of choices in their lives?  The answer is at the conclusion of this post.

This week on the blog, we’re going to conclude our Advent series with a theme that has some resonance to Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.  But I won’t be mentioning ghosts.  Instead, I’m going to be talking about light.  For that, we’re going to rely on another famous author.  This other famous author is sometimes called the Dr. Seuss of the New Testament.  Do you know who I mean?  Like Dr. Seuss, this ancient author repeats a lot of simple concepts to make complex ideas understandable. The person I’m referring to writes about light frequently.  We’re going to talk about the light of Christmas past, present, and future.  First post coming soon.

Oh, and Jesus’ parable that likely inspired Dickens? Luke 16:19–31, The Rich Man & Lazarus. While Jesus doesn’t call them ghosts, the rich man and Lazarus meet Abraham in the afterlife, and have quite an interesting conversation about the meaning of life. Jesus’ original audience would have been shocked that he put the rich man in hell, while Lazarus goes to heaven with Abraham. Why? I try to answer why in this post about the parable.

Photo by Phil Robson on Unsplash

The confusion of darkness

Advent 2025, Week 3 – Psalm 139, Part 1

This guest post is by Molly Stouffer, a ministry student at Regent University.

I want you to imagine with me waking up in the middle of the night. And instead of drifting off to sleep again, you realize something. You aren’t where you fell asleep. You’re not even home.

And yet it’s the middle of the night, so it’s so dark and you can’t even tell exactly where you even are.

In this scenario, how would you feel? Maybe scared, confused, frightened, or afraid?

What would you do? Would you try and fall back asleep thinking, “Oh, it’ll be okay when I wake up?” Would you sit still in bed waiting for something to happen?

Probably not.

I think the most sensible thing, and the thing I would probably do, is I would try to find some kind of light.

This week we’re going to look at Psalm 139, especially verses 11 and 12, “If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night. Even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”

So a little bit of background here. Psalm 139 is written by David.

Most bibles note that, but what they don’t mention is that it’s written by David around the time of 1048 BC. If you don’t know anything special about that year, that’s okay. Some scholars believe this psalm was written by David around the time that he would have been crowned king over Israel.

In 1 Chronicles 13:1-4, we see David go before leaders from all across the assembly of Israel, and the assembly decides that what David pleads for, the Ark of the Covenant, is what was right in their eyes. In 2 Samuel 5:3, David is then anointed as king over all of Israel. This psalm is written from the position that David is experiencing these blessings from God.

After a long period of darkness over Israel, David’s rise to power on the throne would have been a light at the end of the tunnel for so many of God’s people.

With that context in mind, let’s focus on Psalm 139, verse 11, “If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night.”

This verse, from a first glance, may appear that David, as the psalmist, is expressing a desire to flee something. But when we understand some of the words in verse 11, and its surrounding context (the verses before and after), and what they explain, we can see the true meaning emerge.

In the next post, we’ll start that deeper study by looking at the word “cover” in verse 11.

Photo by Илья Мельниченко on Unsplash

The burdens of life are real

Advent 2025, Week 3: Psalm 139, Preview

What is weighing heavily on your heart and mind this week?

Here are a few snippets of text conversations I had this week, all of show the tell-tale signs of burden. Maybe one of these will resonate with you.

“Gonna have a hard conversation this weekend, with [—]: “Stop drinking and coming home or find another place to live.””

“We are not sending out Christmas cards this year due to our ACA health insurance going from $835 a month to $3000 a month so we are cutting back.”

“I’m not sure how it took the contractor SEVEN MONTHS… or how I didn’t murder them in the process, but alas… we finally have a bathroom and they are NOT EVER coming into my house again!”

“The difficult meeting went about as well as can be expected. There were tears of sadness but expressed gratitude for the stable housing she has had while in the program and the things she has learned.”

What burdens are you feeling? 

On this third week of Advent, I’m excited to once again welcome guest blogger, Molly Stouffer, who will be talking about the reality of the burdens we feel in life.  Molly is a pastoral ministries student at Regent University. I first met her when she was a student in one of my classes at Lancaster Bible College. Since that time, she and her boyfriend Colin became active participants in our church family, and Molly preached for me three times. This past summer she completed a ministry internship at her home church in Maryland. She then decided to stay home, transferring to Regent’s online program, so she could help care for her mother.

Molly will be following our Advent devotional’s theme for week three of Advent, “Even the Darkness is Not Dark,” based on Psalm 139.  I encourage you to read Psalm 139 ahead of time. What does Psalm 139 have to say about the burdens we carry?

Photo by Christian Harb on Unsplash

The Messiah’s peaceable kingdom

Advent 2025, Week 2: Isaiah 9, Part 5

As Isaiah continues talking about the government of Jesus in Isaiah 9, he gives us more descriptions of the messiah.  Consider his famous words in Isaiah, 9, verse 6:

“And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

These royal titles show have a fascinating variety. 

Wonderful Counselor.  Jesus will call the Holy Spirit “the Counselor.”

Mighty God.  The Messiah is not just a person, he is God.

Everlasting Father.  The Messiah is eternal.  Also, Jesus regularly prayed to the “Father,” and yet in Isaiah’s prophecy, the Messiah is also God the Father.

In these first three titles, notice how Isaiah’s description of the Messiah aligns with Christian trinitarian theology. But there’s one more title.

Prince of Peace.  Of all the titles, this one is specifically royal.  But this prince is not a military general.  He is a prince of peace.

The kingdom of heaven is peaceable kingdom.  When Jesus was arrested the night before his crucifixion, his disciple Peter whipped out a sword and cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear.  Peter was thinking about armed rebellion.  Jesus said, “Peter, put your sword away…All who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

What Jesus was requiring of his people here is that his kingdom would not advance through military means.  He was enacting another prophecy from Isaiah, that of Isaiah 2:4-5,

““Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”

Jesus’ kingdom melts down the tools of war into the tools of human flourishing.  That is what brings light. We need that kind of peace.

Isaiah concludes with a powerful statement about the messiah’s kingdom in verse 7:

“Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

More emphasis on peace.  This time adding justice and righteousness.  Justice is a legal word.  A measurement, a judgement, a legal claim.  Righteousness is a very similar word, referring to loyalty to the community, honesty, what is good and right.

Notice, though, in verse 7, who is the source of the justice and righteousness?  The Messiah.  The Messiah establishes justice and righteousness.  Upholds them.  The word “zeal” here is sometimes translated “jealous.”  The Messiah’s zeal, his strong desire, will make sure that his kingdom is filled with justice and righteousness.  That is a very different kind of kingdom indeed. 

When we read about the government and nations, our own and those around the world, throughout history we read a story of corruption, injustice, war crimes, and the like. There is much darkness in so many human governments.

Not the Messiah’s kingdom.  In the Messiah’s kingdom there is hope and peace, as his light breaks through the darkness.  In the Messiah’s kingdom we experience inner peace of wholeness, not perfectly, but in a real way.

We participate in bringing that light of peace, when we are peacemakers, justice bringers, striving to pursue righteous living.  

The first week of Advent was about hope.  This second week we have focused on peace.  The light of Jesus brings peace in the darkness.

Photo by Jonathan Meyer on Unsplash

The government is on the shoulders of a baby?

Advent 2025, Week 2: Isaiah 9, Part 4

We just had a new baby in our family.  Our second son and his wife had their first, a son, a month ago.  I was holding my new baby grandson recently, as he was sleeping, and I noticed his blond eyelashes. Not typical for my family, but so cute. When a baby is born, we want details.  What color eyes, hair, length, weight.

It’s Christmas season, and I wonder what Jesus looked like as a baby.

We’ve been studying Isaiah 9 this second week of Advent, and in verses 6 and 7, Isaiah mentioned a baby: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.” What image does that bring to mind?  The nativity scene, right?  Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus in a manger. 

When Isaiah wrote this, he likely wasn’t thinking about a specific childbirth in Bethlehem seven hundred years in the future.  He might have been thinking about the birth of his own sons, which had just happened one chapter previously, in Isaiah 8. 

Yet, when we jump ahead to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, what do the angels declare to the shepherds in the fields just outside town?  In Luke 2:10-11 they declare, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” 

The Messiah means “anointed one,” a savior.  The angels were right!  This is good news.  Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled.  Not simply because a baby was born.  Anytime a baby is born, it is good news.  But this baby was, is, the Messiah.  The Savior. 

After telling us that a son is born, Isaiah now begins to describe this baby.  But he doesn’t give us height, weight, and hair color.  Look at the rest of verse 6, “the government will be on his shoulders.” 

Government? On a baby’s shoulders? 

In Jesus’ day, many people misinterpreted Isaiah’s prophecy, believing that the messiah was going to be a political, government, military leader who was going to restore the kingdom of Israel to its glory as in the days of the great kings David and Solomon. 

The messiah was not going to be an earthly king who would kick the Romans out of Israel.  The Messiah is king of the eternal kingdom of God.  When you think of the eternal kingdom of God, what word comes to mind? Heaven, right?

Where we go wrong is to assume that the Kingdom of God only refers to some non-earthly heaven. We go wrong when we assume that God just wants us to leave this earth and go to heaven.

But didn’t Jesus talk about his kingdom as not of this world?  Yes, he did.  In John 18:36, as he was being questioned by the Roman governor Pilate, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Jesus is not suggesting that his kingdom has nothing to do with our world.  He is simply saying that his kingdom is not a geographical, national kingdom or government like those that are of the world.

We know that the government of the Kingdom of Heaven is here on earth too, because Jesus taught us that.  His earliest sermons declared, “The Kingdom of God is in your midst, is near.”  When he taught us to pray, he said we should pray to God asking, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  The Kingdom of God is here now, not in a building, not by elected officials, not in courts, not with geographical boundaries. 

The Kingdom of God is here now, as people like you and I, within whom God the Spirit lives, when we behave in ways consistent with the way of Jesus.  This is why at Faith Church we so often refer to the Fruit of the Spirit.  We demonstrate the Kingdom by living a life of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control.  We strive to invite other people to enter that kingdom as well, to meet Jesus, to follow his ways.  We strive to eradicate the structures of injustice in our communities, because in God’s kingdom oppression will cease. 

In that way, the government is upon his shoulders. 

Isaiah has more to say about the government being on the shoulders of the baby, and he does so by giving us more descriptions of the messiah. We learn about that in the next post.

Photo by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

Bringing joy to the oppressed

Advent 2025, Week 2: Isaiah 9, Part 3

This second week of Advent 2025, we’re studying Isaiah 9. In the previous two posts here and here, we’ve learned that the prophecy sees a light breaking into the darkness of war-torn northern Israel. A new hope of peace has dawned. No surprise, then, how the prophecy continues in verse 3,

“You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.”

Four times the words joy or rejoice are used in this one sentence!  Of course there is rejoicing when the light of peace dispels the darkness.  But there’s more reason for the rejoicing.

Look at verses 4-5, “For as in the day of Midian’s defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire.”

The rejoicing amplifies because those under oppression are set free.  Originally, this prophecy was about the people in Northern Israel who were under the oppression from Assyria.  As such, this was a very historical prophecy of national freedom.  The prophecy also reveals God’s heart.

God’s light of peace includes freeing people who are suffering under oppression of all kinds.  People who are experiencing suffering are feeling the opposite of peace.  It could be food insecurity, housing insecurity, financial insecurity, abuse, addiction, incarceration.  Sometimes they bring it on themselves.  Yet God cares for all, whether they brought it on themselves or not.

We do well to share God’s light of peace when we seek to overturn suffering of all kinds.  Just as Jesus did, we give ourselves sacrificially, living simply, generously, to lift people who are suffering. 

Consider the words of the great Christmas carol, “O Holy Night”:

“Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, and in His name all oppression shall cease.”

The eradication of oppression sometimes requires destroying the structures of oppression, structures that can be perpetrated by other Christians.  In our American Civil Rights era, for example, overturning oppression required a massive, organized movement, including marches, protests, meetings, publicity, politics, legal cases, including lawsuits that went the whole way to the Supreme Court.

Where do you see suffering in your community? It might be hidden. Oppression often lives in the shadows, especially in affluent communities. My own community is gorgeous, with its heritage of farming, Amish tourism, and yet we have one of the highest unhoused populations in our county. While we have had tent communities from time to time, most of our unhoused persons live in cars, hotels, or with family/friends. Numerous churches, nonprofits, and government orgs work together to support unhoused people, providing for their immediate needs, helping them get work, do financial planning, and traditional housing.

Recently a group of people at nearby Forest Hills Mennonite Church partnered with Chestnut Housing to purpose a property which will be converted to below market rate housing. It will likely be a 3+ year process that will involve lots of fundraising, sweat equity, and result in about 15 units of joyful hope.

There’s also legal work that has been done, such as townships changing zoning laws to allow people to build secondary dwellings on their properties, for the purpose of providing affordable low-income house.

These are just a few examples of how in Jesus’ name, oppression will cease.

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Peace in the midst of dark times

Advent 2025, Week 2: Isaiah 9, Part 2

Matthew was there.  He not only saw the light of Jesus’ peace change others, Matthew personally experienced what happened when Jesus light of peace enters the darkness of a person’s life.

Matthew’s life was dark, without peace. He was a tax collector.  Hated by his fellow Jews because tax collectors were not only in league with their Roman overlords, but also because the tax collectors got rich by overtaxing people.  

Imagine how Matthew himself might have felt.  Have you ever been in a situation like that when it seems that the people in your life are against you?  It doesn’t feel peaceful.  You might not ever have been a tax collector, or have to face your family, friends, and neighbors calling you and treating you a traitor, but my guess is that you have experienced brokenness, relationships that fall apart, grow distant, even conflicted or hateful.  You’ve experienced the darkness, the lack of peace.  You can identify with Isaiah 9:2 (see previous post here), and you might think to yourself, “Yeah, I get why Matthew quoted that verse.”

In Matthew chapter 9, verse 9, we read the story of the very day that light broke into Matthew’s darkness.  “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

How amazing is that?  Jesus asks Matthew to join his group, to enter into his peace, and experience a new way of life.  Matthew sees the light, turns from the darkness, and follows Jesus.  Then they have dinner together.  In Luke’s version of this story, he describes the dinner as a “great banquet.”  It’s a party!  Matthew wants to celebrate the light, the new peace he has found. 

Notice who is invited to and shows up to Matthew’s party?  Matthew 9, verse 10,  “Many tax collectors and sinners.”  That’s an important detail.  Jesus partied with sinners.  Jesus partied with people who were walking in darkness, so that he might bring light and life to them.  Jesus wanted more and more people to experience the wholeness of life, the peace that Matthew was now experiencing. 

It makes sense why Matthew makes the connection between Jesus’ ministry and Isaiah 9:2.  Jesus, through his words and deeds, brings light to the darkness, he brings peace to our hearts, minds, and bodies so that we can experience wholeness.  

At this juncture, though, I need to make an important clarification: please don’t read me as implying that Matthew never had any problems ever again for the rest of his life. Matthew is rightly celebrating the new peace he found in Jesus, but there would be numerous difficult days ahead for Matthew.

Jesus himself, the Prince of Peace (as we will see in a post later this week), experienced deep darkness just before he was arrested and crucified.  He was betrayed by one of his followers. In the garden, he prayed an anguished prayer to his Father, that if there was any other way, asking God to make it so.  He was sweating hard, eager for his followers to surround him, but they just fell asleep.  Then when the betrayer, Judas brought guards to arrest Jesus, the rest of his friends fled.  One of his friends denied him three times. The crowds who once adored him did a 180 a proclaimed “Crucify him!”. But Jesus carried peace through the darkness. 

We won’t always have peaceful situations in our lives. And that is not the point. Jesus did not come to make all situations peaceful. Some, yes. More and more, hopefully, as Christians live out our calling to be peacemakers. Still there will be moments and seasons in which the situations of our lives are less than peaceful, or downright awful. Just like Jesus experienced at the end of his live. Also like Jesus, we can have his peace in the midst of the darkness because he is with us.

The apostle Paul writes about this in Philippians 4:6-7, ” Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

When you are in one of those dark situations, go to God in prayer, ask him to help you be thankful, to experience his peace.

Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash