1. Isaiah, the herald of Epiphany

For the church, Christmas time continues till the day of Epiphany, the 6th January, or 12 days after the Nativity. Matthew tells us about the event ; - After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the East came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)
We read the passage above in parallel to Isaiah 60. The chapter contains the verse ” Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn” which we understand it as a prediction of the day of Epiphany.

In the Old Testament world, Israel was chosen as God’s people. But, in reality, the nation was small and weak. The people live always under threat of invasion of surrounding powerful empires. Indeed small countries like Israel were defeated by and disappeared through the ancient history. Israel might have become one of those lost countries. Nonetheless Isaiah astonishingly predicted brilliant future of that Israel, ; - “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.(Isaiah 60:1-3)

It must be incredible that nations and kings would come to Israel for its brightness. However believers of the early church took the prediction as the promise of the arrival of Jesus Christ. In other words, they thought that Isaiah’s words indicated the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and the event of Epiphany. They were sure that three Magi symbolized “kings of nations.”

When Matthew recorded the passage almost all peoples should ridicule him. But the History proved the truth. Today, one-thirds of the world wide population are christians and many of them go to Israel as pilgrims. Now we will reflect on the meaning of the birth of Jesus by reading Isaiah 60.

The background of Isaiah 60 is Jewish people’s return back to the mother land from Babylon. Israel had been defeated and occupied by Babylonian forces in 587 BC. At that time Jerusalem was demolished and Jewish leaders were brought by force to the victorious nation, far from Israel. 50 years later, captured people had already settled down in Babylon. But God raised a prophet to tell them that ; - The LORD will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.(Isaiah 51:3)

Naturally many of Israelites in Babylon preferred to stay there but the faithful minority set out off toward Israel in 538 BC in accordance with God’s will. However those courageous and faithful persons found in their home land only severe conditions of life.

At the time of their arrival, they were willing to restore the ruined Temple in order to express thankfulness to God who allowed them to be back in the homeland. The foundation stones were planted. But the construction was interrupted by those who had stayed Jerusalem during the captivity. They did not appreciate that the returning group take initiative of restoration of the nation. They even disturbed building labor works. Besides a severe famine stroke the region. Crops did not grow up and they lacked in basic food. Prices of necessities increased enormously. Many of them starved almost to death. They practically could not continue the reconstruction works. So much so they commence to murmur, ; - So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.(Isaiah59:9)

They thought that God did not keep words which had promised them the Garden of Eden. They might be under impression that life in Babylon had been less difficult.

The feeling of those Jewish people seems similar to that of the Japanese just after the World War II. The nation was defeated. Those who had lived in China, Manchu or Korea came back to the mother land by abandoning all personal assets. During returning journey, they thought that life must be safe and less hard in Japan. But they were totally disappointed by the real situation. Living conditions were very harsh due to shortage of food. Many of them became homeless and their relatives did not accepted them kindly.

My parents were among them. Many christians of the time also murmured like Israelites ; - Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.(Isaiah 59:1)

They almost lost faith in God. But for the Jewish people a prophet was raised and taught them that they were wrong to blame God. He is anonymous but now called ‘ the third Isaiah.’

2. Kerygma, proclamation of Isaiah

The prophet proclaims ; - “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.(Isaiah 60:1-2)

He tried to make Jewish people understand that God’s promise had been realized. The tense of verbs of the verses are in ‘ prophetic past’ in Hebrew. It means that the verses are actually a future messianic prophecy and the verbs are in the past tense because these future events are already done.

So the verse 3 presents the event which must happen in future ; - Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
Therefore the prophet encourages to arise and shine. Further he continues, ; - “Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm.(Isaiah 60:4)

Thought majority of Jewish in Babylon were remaining there, they would come back also to Israel to assist in the restoration of the Temple, Isaiah said. The plan had been interrupted due to lack of labors and money. But certain time later ; - Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come( Isaiah60:5)

Because all around nations would bring treasures to Israel ;- Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.All Kedar’s flocks will be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth will serve you; they will be accepted as offerings on my altar, and I will adorn my glorious temple.(Isaiah 60:6-7)

At the very time, Isaiah predicts, the Temple of Jerusalem will be restored, in which Jewish rites should be observed in sumptuous way. That is the appeal of Isaiah 60 to encourage the desperate people, hopeless in the dark.

3. Seeking the light in the dark

Today’s invocation verses are Matthew 4:15-16 ; - “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, along the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

The Gospel writer is referring to Isaiah’s words. The land of Galilee was once occupied and ruled by Assyria under which Galileans suffered from domination of gentiles. But the time of emancipation of the people has come and they will see the light, Matthew says. Those living in the darkness should see the light like Galileans of the ancient time.

To grasp the significance of the verses, I tell you about life of Viktor Frankl*, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. He was a Jewish person and sent to a concentration camp by Nazi with his wife, children and parents. His family died there except him. At the arrival to the camp he was forced to be naked and deprived of all possessions. He said then in his mind addressing to Nazi officers, ” Even though your could loot my family, clothing and freedom of body, I have always freedom to choose how I will conduct by facing any given future.” He also said to two inmates who had decided to kill themselves in despair, ” There must be someones who need you, somewhere and somehow. They should be waiting for you alive.” (Please refer ‘Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning’ by V. Frankl)

By giving encouraging words to others, despite extremely harsh living conditions there, Frankl could keep hope of life and dignity. Therefore he could survive the camp whereas many of desperate inmates died one after another. Frankl believed that under any circumstances humans can accept our life positively.”

Previously I said that Isaiah 60:1 was a sentence of prophetic past. It means that the upcoming event in future is annonced as if it already occurred. More literal translation of the verse might be like this : “Arise, shine, for your light has come because the glory of the LORD had risen upon you.” It is true that the present world is in the dark. Nonetheless we could see the light already. It is the very way for christians to live. Circumstances are sad and difficult but we keep hope because God is with us. Isaiah promised the light, which has arrived now. Therefore we can continue our way hopefully. Frankl did not understand why he was sent to the camp or his family should be killed there. This world seems filled of absurdity. Not only for those Jewish persons but also for us because human or natural misfortunes break us unexpectedly, earthquakes, sudden death of our children or job loss due to recession, for example. But when we seek deep meaning of those sad happenings we commence to see the light of God shining.

On the 19th december this year, I watched a broadcast on NHK, titled ” Lonely rebel.” It was a reportage about a person who tried to restore the existent Japanese juridic system. He, Mr. Okamura, was one of lawyers of Yamaichi Securities Co., Ltd. which bankrupted in 1997. One day a man killed his wife, following certain trouble caused by litigations of investing losses. The man was arrested and Okamura attended courts as a relative of victim, not as a lawyer for the first time in his life. Through such painful experiences Okamura recognized that mental and physical sufferings of victims and their family were totally neglected in judicial procedure in Japan. So much so he mobilized families of crime victims to restore existent criminal-court system. The appeal successfully achieved to establish a new law ‘ Basic right for Crime Victims.’ Okamura said at the end of the program, “I would not even think about the movement if mu wife had not been killed.”

We see there that even very sad incidents could bring us to achieve great things, as Paul pointed out the fact ; - Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.(Corinthians 7:10 )

Christians must face courageously harsh difficulties by trusting in God’s love and trying to see the light. That way of living should change our vision of future to positive one.
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* Viktor Frankl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl