Living in the Land of “Nevertheless”: Reflections on Isaiah 9:1-4

  

Is. 9:1-4

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan—

The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned. 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. 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.

John Steinbeck wrote, “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” Taking a somewhat less optimistic approach, Florence + the Machine railed, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”

In the words of the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

There is something austere about these words.  On a closer look I see an unsettling and unwelcome message about the inevitability of darkness and shadow.  

We wish we could fly from the darkness and into the light.  However, real faith must gain traction in an ambiguous world, a world with rough edges and pot holes and shadow – a world where God is obscured every bit as much as God is evident, and where faithfulness often means an uncomfortable familiarity with distress and gloom.  Anything less would turn our faith into a crutch, and rob it of its power.

However much we want to focus on the sweetness of the morning, or the sparkle of light after a long darkness, we know that much of our lives are spent groping in the shadow, muddling forward as best we can. 

To speak of faith in this way is to say that the cost of true discipleship will entail struggle and victory, agony and elation, doubt and faith.  It is to say that God is not obvious, God is not predictable. It is to say that faith itself is stretched in the gloom.  It is to say that the God of the Scriptures is a hidden God who speaks into the darkness as much as God speaks into the light.

It is sometimes shocking how intensely realistic the Bible is about the pervasive shadow of death and distress in the world.  After hearing much of the TV preachers pronouncing health and wealth on those who give money to their cause you would think that a life of faith and devotion was filled with sunny days and affirmations.  But the Scripture never shuts its eyes to the shadow that makes Christian faith the most challenging of adventures.