light… ‘and you child’
When the prophet Malachi passed around 450 B.C., no genuine prophetic voice was heard again for about 500 years. Darkness.
We know this period as the intertestamental period—the gap between the Old and New Testaments. Without a prophet, people in Israel began to divide into parties and groups- all claiming the right to interpret the scriptures and lead the people. They all desired to lead but each group was in an even deeper darkness than the people who yearned for God’s word, His prophet. A messiah.
Without a prophet darkness deepens. External blackness envelopes not only the outside, but insides of each man woman and child. 450 years of silence has robbed people of hope, joys, and light.
And so, as we look this Advent at the meaning of Jesus’ coming, let us look into this darkness through a light, the light of an unexpected child’s birth, the light of John the Baptist’s birth, … and the words his father prophesied at the light of John’s, his son’s birth … Luke 1: 76-79
‘…And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”’
Zaharias a priest, a new father, speaks. Placed in silent darkness because he did not believe the Angel who promised his wife Elizabeth and he a child in their old age, he sat in darkness for nine months. . A priest who cannot speak. A darkened life.
And yet, the child’s birth returns his speech. A renewed life. Light.
He prays, prophesies and holds his John saying, ‘ and you child…’
John will bring prophetic light to the Lord’s people’s. Yet, this is not ‘the sunrise… from on high.’ Jesus. Jesus who brings the light of forgiveness of sin; salvation, tender mercy.
All will no longer sit in darkness. Stationary, passive. No.
He will raise all to their feet and guide. Guide us from darkness’ depths to peace.
Light. From a child. The baby to come.
Jesus. Light.
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