11.16.25 – Sermon written and preached by Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville, LA

Scripture Introduction: Isaiah 9:1–7

The world Isaiah speaks into is a world in crisis.

By the time of this passage,

the Assyrian Empire has swept through the northern kingdom of Israel.

Entire regions have been conquered.

Towns and villages have been emptied.

Families have been uprooted.

The places Isaiah names were the first to fall and their loss hangs over the whole nation like a heavy shadow.

Isaiah himself lives in Judah, the southern kingdom,

watching the devastation to the north

and knowing his own people feel the danger pressing closer.

The fear is real. The uncertainty is real.

Life has shifted in ways no one expected, and the darkness feels deep.

It is into that landscape that Isaiah steps forward as a prophet.

Not to erase the fear, not to deny the reality,

but to speak a word from God in the midst of it.

Let us listen for the Word of the Lord in the book of Isaiah.

Isaiah 9:1-7

Scripture Introduction:

Our second reading comes from the Gospel of John,

in the midst of one of Israel’s great festivals, the festival of booths or tabernacles.

It is a time when the people remembered how God guided them through wilderness nights as a pillar of cloud and fire.

Lamps were lit across the temple courts.

Their glow filled the courtyards and reminded the people of God’s presence with their ancestors long ago.

It is in that setting, surrounded by their collective memory of God’s guiding light in the wilderness, that Jesus speaks.

Let us listen for the Word of the Lord from the Gospel of John.

John 8:12

Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

Sermon: The Light We Call By Name

I sleep with my phone nearby.
Not for the notifications.
Not even for the alarm.
Mostly for the light…..

In the middle of the night, when the house is quiet and the room is dark,

all I have to do is tap the screen.

The glow is not much.

It will never brighten the whole room or chase away every shadow. But it is enough.

Enough to see the floor.
Enough to keep from stepping on the dog’s tail.
Enough to make my way without stumbling.

It’s just a tiny bit of light.
But in the middle of the night, it changes everything.

Isaiah spoke into a moment that felt like that kind of night.

A moment when the world had dimmed around God’s people.

A moment when they were trying to find their footing in a landscape that had shifted under them.

The northern tribes, Zebulun and Naphtali,

had already fallen to the Assyrian empire.

These were not distant places.

These were neighbors. Kinfolk.

These were the lands where cousins lived,

the lands whose stories filled the collective memory of the people.

Now they were occupied.

Their people displaced.

Their identity shaken.

Assyria was not only a political force.

It was a shadow that spread across everything.

One couldn’t do anything without fear…

Every border crossing. Every trip to the marketplace. Was done in fear.

Every prayer. Every plan for tomorrow. Was done in the shadow of that fear.

The fear was not imagined.

It had a shape and a name and an army.
And it was close enough to breathe down their necks.

This scripture passage calls what they are living in “deep darkness.”

Interestingly, the same old Hebrew word used here is found in Psalm 23, which we usually translate as “the shadow of death.”

This darkness was not merely nighttime.

This was the kind of darkness that settles into a community

and rearranges how people live and think and hope.

Isaiah steps into that world.
Not with easy reassurance.
Not with denial.

He steps into the same shadows everyone else is standing in.

He breathes the same air.
He carries the same questions.
And yet he speaks.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

When Isaiah says that, nothing has changed…. yet.

Assyria is still Assyria.
The land is still scarred.
The people are still afraid.
Hope has not arrived.
Peace has not broken through.

But Isaiah sees what the people cannot see yet.

That God’s presence has not left.
That the darkness is not the end of the story.
That light has a way of coming even when no one is looking for it.

Isaiah even names the direction the light will come from.

He points north.
Toward Galilee.
Toward the very regions crushed first by Assyria.

Isaiah says the first light will rise

in the very places that have known the worst of the night.

Because this is the pattern of God.
God’s light does not begin where everything is already bright.
God’s light begins where people most need it.

Isaiah then imagines what this light will do.

It will break the yoke from their shoulders.
It will lift the weight that has pressed them down.
It will burn the tools of violence that have scarred the land.
It will end the cycle of fear that has shaped their days.

This is not sentimental light.
It is liberating light.
Restoring light.
Healing light.
Light that does not pretend the world is fine.
Light that enters what is not fine and begins its quiet work of restoration.

Isaiah then tells them that this light will take form in a child.

A child born into a world that is not gentle or safe.
A child who will carry titles large enough to signal that God’s reign is coming in a new way.

Wonderful Counselor.
Mighty God.
Everlasting Father.
Prince of Peace.

This is clearly a new kind of leadership.

Not based on fear.
Not rooted in domination.
Not held together by violence.
A leadership rooted in God’s own character.
A leadership that creates peace by healing and justice, not by force.

Centuries later, during the Festival of Booths, Jesus stands in the temple courts.

This is a festival built entirely around the memory of wandering in the wilderness,

the memory of God’s guidance,

the memory of a pillar of fire that lit the way through every night.

During this feast, giant lamps were lit in the courtyard.

Their glow could be seen across the entire city.

The light reminded the people that God had guided them before and could guide them again.

It is in the glow of those lamps that Jesus says, “I AM the light of the world.”

Not the festival lamps.
Not the temple lights.
Jesus himself.

Jesus stands there as a human being.
Carrying in his own body the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise.

The same light that rises in deep darkness.
The same light that breaks the weight of oppression.
The same light that guides people through wilderness nights.
The same light that whispers, even now, that the shadow of death will not ultimately win.

Jesus becomes the light that is enough.

Enough to reveal truth.
Enough to heal wounds.
Enough to enter the parts of our lives we keep hidden because we worry they are too dark or too tangled.
Enough to quiet the frantic stories we tell ourselves in the night.
Enough to steady us when the world shifts under our feet.

In church, we talk a lot about peace.

Sometimes the images of peace feel soft and beautiful.
But sometimes, if we are honest, they feel too small for the world we actually live in.
Sometimes we find ourselves longing for something deeper than holiday peace,

something that can stand up to grief and violence and exhaustion and uncertainty.

Isaiah and Jesus offer that deeper peace.
A peace that does not ignore reality.
A peace that looks directly at the world as it is.
A peace that enters the real valleys, the real upheavals, the real shadows.
A peace that holds even when nothing else does.

And so the promise for us today is this:

God’s light will rise.
God’s presence will meet us in every shadowed place.
God’s peace will take root in the real world.

Sometimes the light comes like morning.
Sometimes it comes like a lamp in the distance.
Sometimes it comes like the soft glow of a phone screen in the night.

It is not always bright.
But it is always enough.
Enough to take the next step.
Enough to know we are not alone.
Enough to trust that the One who is our light will guide us all the way home.

Thanks be to God. Amen.