“Following in His Footsteps” – Advent Reflections 2016 – 4th Sunday

4th Sunday of Advent, December 18, 2016

“Light to the Captives”

“I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” Isaiah 42:6-7

Isaiah wrote this to describe God’s purpose for His coming Messiah.

With these words, God equaled the playing field for mankind. In spite of the special relationship God had provided for the Jews, in Isaiah’s time they were living in spiritual darkness. In this way they were no different than their gentile neighbors, who had never experienced the light of God’s truth in the first place.

Every man was living in the dark prison of his own spiritual blindness.

Then Jesus came onto to the scene, springing open the prison doors and setting the captives free.

There are many miracles in the Bible, but out of every prophet or servant granted the power to do miracles in the thousands of years of biblical record, there was only one man who made the blind see. Those physical healings were an unmistakable sign that Jesus was the promised Messiah, described hundreds of years earlier by Isaiah as the One who would open blind eyes.

As wonderful as those miracles were, they were a mere metaphor for what He was ultimately sent to do: to bring mankind from the domain of spiritual darkness into the Kingdom of Light. “You will know the truth,” Jesus told his disciples, “and the truth will make you free.”

(Light candle)

As His light-bearers, we illuminate the darkness around us by living as He lived, sharing the truth of God’s Word as He gives opportunity, and inviting those in darkness into the light. People continue to be rescued by the light of God’s truth today. He is still in the business of setting the captives free.

Written by NHC teaching leader, author and speaker, Julie Coleman