Sunday 25th January – The End of Gloom

It was probably 35+ in the shade the day Dad took me to the nearby farm in the WA Wheatbelt of his mate Jock to do a job for Jock – me that is, not Dad. It turned out be a bit of nice surprise.

The job was to shovel out a truck full of grain through the trap door in the tailgate into the ogre sending the grain into one of Jock’s grain silos. Normally the grain would easily flow through the trap door but the tipping hydraulics were not working so this day it had to be shovelled – by me!

Dad had a chat to Jock and Jock told me to get into the bin and get to it. To my surprise, Dad then drove off to do something else. I was only 8 at the time. Dad leaving gave me the sense that I was now ‘at work’ on my own.

So I go to it and shovelled that 8 tonnes of wheat …. Hot work. Dusty work. Itchy work! But the hard work all turned to unexpected joy…

Dad had turned up again. He and Jock were talking. Covered in dust I jumped out of the bin. Job done.  I wondered what would happen next.

Dad said that Jock was now going to pay me for my work. I thought that might be a couple of dollars in coins. That would enough to buy a few pies during lunch time at school next week.

To my amazement and joy, the reward for this hard work was a rectangular piece of paper which Jock was signing. Dad asked me, “Would $12.00 be enough?”. Cough, cough, splutter splutter … “Yeah!”. To my sheer satisfaction and joy at this astonishing turn of events, I accepted my literal first pay cheque – for the exorbitant amount of $12.00. That is a lot of pies and sauce and choc milks and icy poles!

The bonus was also that for the first time I felt ‘big’; like ‘a man’ in a working world.

The day turned out pretty different to what I thought it would be. Something had also changed in my little life – changed for the good.

This kind of satisfaction and unexpected joy is what Isaiah speaks to God’s people in their hard place.

Isaiah is telling them that God is going to surprise them one day with this kind of change; this kind of newness; this kind of reward and benefit in their future.

This new and good change will not happen because of their hard work. It will happen just because this is the Lord’s plan for his people and his world, even despite the people’s gloom and doom and their lack of effort and success when it comes to relying on him and trusting him and doing their ‘work’ which was meant to be being God’s blessing for the rest of the world.

“Nevertheless”? In their rather gloomy situation where they are struggling with the threat of violence and destruction at the hands of their stronger neighbours, God’s people had been looking to everyone and everything except him for their hope and joy. They had even stooped so low and gone so far as to consult the dead; medium’s and spiritists – the occult and etc.

Just before this ‘nevertheless’, is a questioning and a declaring of this lack of trust.

Isaiah calls them back to better way…

And if you don’t; if you keep on avoiding the Lord’s promises and go everywhere else for your life and hope? Darkness, gloom, doom …

Chasing after the winds of power or control or pleasure from within or from other people or things to find satisfaction, hope and joy goes nowhere good.

And yet, our chasing does not stop God’s finding.

Why so and how and who and what stops the darkness and despair of our souls?

New light. New light of God coming upon us…..and in the places we need light the most; in the places where it is hardest for the darkness to be lifted.

In this case, the new light breaking into the darkness and gloom we know comes first to the place where the fear was always the most – in the North of the country – the Galilee – the traditions lands of the tribes of Zebulen and Naphtali.

That northern area was always the place that copped it first and the most when any invading foreign power decided to have a go at Isreal and Judah or pass through on their way to have a go at someone else, like Syria or Assyria or Babylon or Egypt.

So, under real threat from more than one neighbouring people who had little regard for Israel, and the oppressive darkness this kind of threat brings to your nation, your community, your family and yourself, speaks Isaiah, the mouthpiece of God promising the end of gloom and doom – new light and life.

And it always comes just by a word – as it sis in the very beginning, “Let there be light”!

See how our God truly knows the gloom; the darkness people experience. He acknowledges it here.

We know what that feels like. We know darkness. It can be worry, insecurity, threat of reputation damage, financial hardship, debt, loss, ill-health- inner turmoil, pure weakness to overcome a thing, doubt about faith, fears for the world….. God knows the gloom.

But his light comes to these. Light come to us.

In the our threatened and dangerous places as person and as a nation comes the dawn of a new way, a new day, a new hope…

We know those citizens of Galilee were the first to see this dawn. Matthew told us, even in these very words of Isaiah:

¹² When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. ¹³ Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali – ¹⁴ to fulfil what was said through the prophet Isaiah:

The light that changes everything comes in words – words of Jesus.

God used words to shine this light of a new way to be at peace in joy with the God who surprises us, moves for us, seeks us out and finds us and directs us anew.

He has not stopped shining light in our darkness by words. Our God has been speaking light into the lives of billions across millennia. Our God has been speaking light into our country Australia since we were first names the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit.

There is a future of light up ahead for us all. The Apostle John gives a picture of what this word of light eventually will create …

I don’t know your despair or darkness. I know we have all been feeling various gloomy things these last few years, and even now with what is happening in our country and our world.

We are responding to these threatening things is some good ways, but Isaiah is saying that this bright future that ends our gloom does not ultimately come from us. We can do some things – make laws, reduce guns, speak up for ourselves and etc. but the only light that can transform a person comes from the Lord’s mouth.

He is the only one who can change everything in and for us – despair to joy, dark to light, injury to healing, doubt to faith, fear to love.

And, we believe he has arisen and he is shining; he is speaking his light into our lives, no matter how worried or fearful we may feel.

Friend, trust him today. Listen in his light to your soul in all you face.

Jesus has defeated that darkness in your life. He has healed that despair you are still holding.

Arise and shine for the light of Jesus has come and you are in it.

Perceive it. See it. Hear it in his light filled words.

There is an end to this gloom we often know.

His name is not Jock and his cheque book!

Isaiah names him ‘Immanuel; the Servant.

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