Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is found in the Gospel of Luke 1:57 to 80. The call to worship this morning was the first half of what has become known as the Benedictus, and that’s the middle of the text we’ll be reading. But in front of that is the narrative about the naming of John the Baptist, and then following it is the second half of the benediction speaking of the birth of John. Please rise for the reading of God’s word, Luke 1:57 to 80.

Now Elizabeth’s full time came for her to be delivered, and she brought forth a son. When her neighbors and relatives heard how the Lord had shown great mercy to her, they rejoiced with her. So it was on the eighth day that they came to circumcise the child, and they would have called him by the name of his father Zachariah. His mother answered and said, “No, he shall be called John.” But they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” So they made signs to his father what he would have him called.

And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, saying, “His name is John.” So they all marveled. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around him. And all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all those who heard them kept them in their heart, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.

Now his father Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets who have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the highest. For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins through the tender mercy of our God, with which the dayspring from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. So the child grew and became strong in spirit and was in the desert till the day of his manifestation to Israel.

Let’s pray. Oh wisdom proceeding from the mouth of the highest, reaching from eternity to eternity and disposing all things with strength and sweetness, come teach us the way of knowledge. Oh Lord and leader of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the burning bush and delivered the law to him on Sinai. Come redeem us by your outstretched arm. Oh root of Jesse, you stand as a sign of the people. Before you rulers do not open their mouths. To you all nations shall pray.

Come and deliver us. Do not delay. Oh key of David and scepter of Israel, you open and no one shuts. You shut and no one opens. Come and release from prison those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Oh dayspring, splendor of eternal light and son of righteousness, come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. Bless us by your Holy Spirit with enlightenment to understand your word today and to be transformed by it.

For we ask it in the mighty and powerful name of the one whose advent we celebrate this season, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. We’ve all had joyous Christian Christmas times together, I suppose, this last week. Not maybe quite what we expected, not being able to gather for the last two Lord’s Days. And I know some people didn’t get to do all the shopping they wanted to do to give presents to others.

Some people were prevented from gathering with those they wanted to be with. My son Elijah got kind of caught up in the Tri Cities and was unable to be with us for Christmas. So it was a little different Christmas, but surely one of celebration and joy, of gift giving, of delight in the wonderful incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the proper way of doing that is this giving of gifts that we do to celebrate the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, to tell us that all of this around us is a good thing and a good thing to be enjoyed and to be participated in through the mercies and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a time of victory celebrations. Over and over again, the Christmas message is one of victory over the enemies of God. And we read that in the Benedictus just now, that he came to give us victory over our enemies. Very important for us to continue to remember that there are enemies and that Jesus came to give his people victory over those enemies. Although in a strange way, who were the enemies when Jesus came?

Well, most people thought they were the Romans, but they were really the apostate Jews. And Jesus’s victory didn’t look like victory when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, but it was, of course, victory for the church. And then eventually the church converts the Roman empire, and the world becomes Christianized in large part. This all comes as a result of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re today addressing the fifth verse of this wonderful old church song referred to as the O Antiphons.

The fifth verse is O Oriens. You know, you orient yourself, which means you get your directions. Oriens is a reference to east, but Oriens in many of the more modern translations of the Antiphons is translated “dayspring.” There was this beautiful word in existence or in use during the time of the King James Version of the Bible: “dayspring.” And we just heard it in the reading of the Benedictus, that Jesus is the dayspring from on high, the rising Orient.

And the dayspring would be the place on the horizon where the day would spring forth from. Usually in the New Testament when we read the word “east,” it isn’t really a directional word. It’s not like a direction, east. It really is the place of rising. And so the horizon that means—refers to the east. Now it’s kind of moving, or the manifestation of day changes as we go through the cycles, right? So the dayspring more technically is that particular place where the day begins to spring forth and the light begins to come. And all those wonderful prophecies of the Lord Jesus Christ bringing light to the Gentiles and light to those in darkness are seen as fulfilled in the advent—at least in Zechariah’s song.

So light’s an important part of the celebration of Christmas in Christian cultures. Lights are everywhere. Lights are a big deal. I don’t know if you ever thought why that is. It’s celebratory of course, but it’s really in reference to the idea that Jesus Christ is, as he says in the Gospel of John, the light of the world. And the light of the world, the light of the new world, the light of the new creation, has come at the advent of Jesus Christ. And so we celebrate Christmas in a large way with this celebration of light.

The Greek word that’s translated “dayspring” or “east” is anatoli. So some people’s names in other cultures use anatoli, and that means dayspring or east or place where the sun rises up. And that’s what this fifth O Antiphon is all about.

One translation of the Antiphon is this: Oh, radiant dawn. So Oriens, radiant dawn, dayspring, splendor of eternal light—probably a reference to Hebrews, which we’ll talk about in a minute, the prologue to Hebrews in the first four verses. Son of justice—a reference to Malachi 4. Come shine on those who dwell in darkness, in the shadow of death. And this builds on the Benedictus, but also it refers back to Isaiah 9:2.

And so we celebrate at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ the coming of light and the coming of all these wonderful promises brought to fulfillment through the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. So this word “dayspring”—what I want to do is talk just a little bit about a couple of verses in the Old Testament and New Testament that are relative to the general concept or truth of what we’re talking about here.

But then I want to talk specifically about the Benedictus using the outline provided on page two, and we’ll talk a little bit about what all that means and the significance to us today. What’s the purpose of Jesus coming as the dayspring? And we’ll see that in the text. What are the wonderful great promises that are found therein? And then what’s our proper response to those promises? What’s the gospel? What’s the credenda—what we’re to believe about today? And then how are we supposed to respond to that?

When we get to the particular text now related to “dayspring,” or Jesus being described as the light of the world or the rising up of the sun, you might remember that I, Jonathan and Joanna, used to live in Rochester, and in a cemetery, the bodies there, for instance, are all lined up so that the feet are at the east and the head is at the west.

And the idea is that when Jesus returns and the dead are raised, they’ll rise up and they’ll be facing east, because the Bible says “as the flashing of lightning from the east to the west.” Jesus is this Oriens. He’s the day coming. Psalm 19—he’s the sun as it makes a circuit from east to west. And so people would be lined up to face him as he comes. And so there’s this directional aspect.

In addition to that, though, other reasons why we have these lights is that we think about the star. And you know, next week is Epiphany Sunday, and we’ll be thinking about, you know, the Gentiles—the sixth O Antiphon is “O Rex Gentium,” the king of the Gentiles, and desire thereof. So we’ll be talking about that. But we think about—and we just read earlier from Isaiah 60 about the dromedaries on the land, the camels. And Isaiah, the rest of Isaiah 60, as we’ve talked about, really sort of describes the coming of the Magi, ultimately, to come and worship the Lord Jesus Christ. And they are guided by a star. And in the Bible, stars are significant also as light-bearing objects.

The sun is a star. So the great star is the sun that rises up every day to greet us. But also Jesus is described as the morning star. For instance, at the end of the book of Revelation, he says he’s the root and offspring of David. And he goes on to say, “I’m the bright and morning star.” And so Jesus is also, as a light-bearer, a star.

In Matthew 2, the wise men are described as seeing Jesus’s star in the east and then coming in reference to that star. And whatever the star might be there—whether it’s the specific Shekinah glory of God, an astronomical phenomena, whatever—the Bible decides to describe it using the language of stars. And it relates stars to proclaiming the birth of Christ. And Christ himself is called a star. And so he’s the bright and morning star, as I said.

And as I mentioned also, there are various references in this fifth O Antiphon to several places of Scripture. And some of those places come from the Old Testament, of course. So I just want to read a couple of verses from the Old Testament on the first part of the outline, comment very briefly about it. We’ll do the same thing with some New Testament texts, and then we’ll look at the Benedictus.

The same word “dayspring” in the King James Version of the Bible is also found in Job 38:12. And so the statement is, “Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days and caused the dayspring to know its place?”

So here the idea is the dayspring knowing its place—where on the horizon is it at a particular point in time? So it has reference to man’s inability to control astronomical phenomena, but God’s wisdom in knowing how to do it and setting it all up. So again, in the Job reference, dayspring refers to the place of the rising of the sun and is explicitly said to be something that is related to God’s sovereignty.

Isaiah 9, we mentioned that as a reference to this light, and then we can see its echo in this fifth O Antiphon. Isaiah 9 says this: “Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed—the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali. And afterward, more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

So in Galilee of the Gentiles, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.” So this is a reference that’s picked up in the O Antiphon—the promise that the light of the world will come to those who dwell in darkness.

And again, as I said, in Isaiah 60:1, “Arise, shine, your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”

Now we’ll look at Isaiah 60 at the end of the sermon as well. And it’s interesting, because part of it is referring to Jesus—that light has come upon us—but part of it is a call for us to shine forth as well. That we’re supposed to arise and be lights ourselves.

Isaiah 58:7 and 8. Well, verse 8 says, “Then your light shall break forth like the morning. Your healing shall spring forth speedily.” So Jesus is light. He’s the son of righteousness that rises with healing in its wings according to Malachi. But in Isaiah 58, it said that our light will come, will shine forth, and we’ll be like Jesus in being healing to other people. Your healing shall spring forth speedily, both to us and to others.

Well, when does this happen? Well, verse 7 tells us, “Is it not the correct Sabbath to share your bread with the hungry, that you bring to your home the poor who are cast out? When you see the naked, that you cover him and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth.” So the reference to the light of Christ breaking forth on us is tied to our shining forth in grace and mercy to those in the context of our land itself.

And as I said, Malachi chapter 4: “Behold, the day is coming burning like an oven. All the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear my name, rather—so if we fear his name—the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.

On the day that I do this, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

So that’s the context for the son of righteousness rising with healing in its wings. It’s not just healing for us, it’s to give us the ability to conquer the enemies of God as well.

And then finally, in Numbers 24:17, is the prophecy of the coming of the Christmas star. I suppose we could say, “I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob. A scepter shall rise out of Israel and batter the brow of Moab and destroy all the sons of tumult.” So the star, ultimately—again—Jesus identifies himself as the morning star. The star that we think of in terms of Christmas, ultimately, can be related to the identity of Jesus.

And again, here, as we just read in Isaiah and other texts, the star comes to exercise the defeat of our enemies and the establishment of God’s people. So there’s this war kind of context to it.

I won’t read all the references, but if you do a concordance search for the word “star” in the Pentateuch—in the first five books of the Bible—you’ll find the reference to Numbers identifying the star to come. But most of the uses of the word “star” are actually about all the descendants of Abraham being as the stars of the sky. This promise is repeated several times. Usually the word “star” is in the plural, and it refers to all of us. We’re the true descendants of Abraham by the faith of our father Abraham, and we’re described as stars.

So there’s one star, but then there’s a bunch of stars who shine with the reflected glory of that one star. So Jesus is the great star. He’s the morning star. He’s the Oriens, the star that rises in terms of it being the sun over us. But the idea throughout the Old Testament is that this is to enable us to shine forth, to shine forth ourselves as stars.

Now in the New Testament, as I said, this word “anatoli” in the Greek—translated “Oriens” or in Latin “Oriens,” or in the King James Version “dayspring”—is usually translated with the word “east.” So if you read about you know the east, what you’re really reading about is “anatoli,” almost always, and it means specifically the point of the rising of the sun.

I mentioned reflections of Hebrews 1 in this Antiphon. In Hebrews 1, the prologue verses 1 to 4, says this: “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times passed to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the world, who being the brightness of his glory and the expressed image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.”

So this is a text that is frequently read at Christmas time, that Jesus Christ comes as the light. He comes as the brightness of the glory. He comes as the expressed image of the person of the Father. And that’s really at the center of that prologue—the description of Jesus Christ as radiant light, the shining out of the glory of his Father.

And as I said, in Revelation 22, Jesus identifies himself as the bright and morning star. And the Gospel of John, of course, is just filled with references to light. In verse four, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” So John comes to bear witness, specifically, of the light.

So John bears witness of that light, and Jesus declares that he is the light of the world. Later in John’s gospel—it’s one of the seven “I ams” of John’s gospel—”I am the light of the world.” And so light is a very pervasive theme in the scriptures, old and new, to speak about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is.

So he is light, and this light is then cast upon us, and we become light-bearers as well. So let’s look now specifically at the text in Luke 1, the Benedictus.

And now the way to think of this is there’s the narrative about the naming of John. Okay, that’s the first part. Then there’s the song called the Benedictus, which is called the Benedictus because the first word in the Greek—or in the English translation—is “Blessed.” Latin, “benedictus.” So “Blessed be the Lord God.” He’s done these things for us. So there’s this song of Zechariah, the father of John. So there’s the text, the narrative, and then the song.

So there’s kind of two parts to this, but the song has two parts as well. The first part of the song that Elder Wilson read at the call to worship this morning, that’s all about Jesus. The second part of the song more directly addresses John the Baptist, who’s going to be the forerunner of Christ and prepare his ways. So this structure given to you on your outline on page two breaks this up. It’s one whole, but it breaks it up into these three different sections.

Let’s look at the first section then beginning at verse 57.

So we have a son at the beginning of the text, and the child is growing—the way the structure has been laid out here—at the end of the text. So there’s kind of the bookends of this particular first narrative: the son and the child, and what will this son be like? What will be this story about? What is this story about here?

Notice as well that in verse 58, we have the neighbors hearing about what’s going on. The baby’s been born, and they rejoice with her in verse 58. And then matching that at the end of the section, matching it in verse 65, is “fear came to all.” So they’re moved from joy to fearfulness. And this somehow is in the narrative of what this son is and what’s going to happen. So the people are happy that God has given her a son. But now they become properly fearful, I would say, by the end of the narrative through what happens in the middle of it.

And then in the third section, in verse 59, we have the eighth day, the naming of the baby. And that’s interesting because it tells us that the naming normally happened at the time of circumcision. You know, circumcision is a sign of a new creation. So the baby becomes a new creation and is given its name. Then we’ve talked before about the circumcision of Christ, which is celebrated eight days after Christmas, and that’s when he received his name as well.

So now we have this big deal going on about the naming of the baby. And what happens in the center is kind of a controversy about who, what the name will be. And so they think he’s going to be named Zachariah, like his dad, or at least have a family name. But the mom says, “No, he’s going to be called John.” And the neighbors say, “Well, nobody in your family is called John. It’s not a good family name for you.” But something else is going on here other than just the extension of family.

What’s going on is something different. Something more important than the family is being talked about here. What’s being talked about is the coming of the forerunner who will prepare the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. So there’s almost a little bit of tension here between family privilege and then what God is doing in a sense that’s much larger than the family. And so the center of the text is all about this controversy.

What is he going to be called? What will his name be? And the relatives and neighbors—they want him to be called a family name. But God has already declared that his name is going to be John. Now the name John means “Yahweh has graced us.” It’s a contraction. It’s based on a Hebrew name. And the Hebrew name is based on two words: Yahweh and grace. So “the grace of Yahweh” or “Yahweh has graced us.” He has shown mercy to us.

And so John’s name means that God has brought grace and mercy to his people. And so that’s at the center of that opening narrative—the first third of the story for us. The center of all that is this naming controversy and a sovereign name given by God as opposed to the family name that the neighbors and relatives wanted to give him. And the center is that naming, and that naming is that his name is going to be “Yahweh has graced us.”

Now let’s look at the second section of the narrative beginning at verse 67.

Hopefully you have these outlines; otherwise it’s probably a little tough to figure out what I’m talking about here. And here it’s interesting—in the outline, parts two and three are combined together as the whole song. And this whole song has a sequence of words at the beginning and at the end, drawing this off as a particular completed section.

What do I mean? Well, in verse 67, the word that is bolded there is “Holy Spirit.” And then the next word that is bolded is “visited.” And then there’s “people.” And then in the next verse there’s “salvation,” and then “prophets” in the next verse after that. Okay, so we go from: spirit, visited, people, salvation, prophets.

And now if you look down at the bottom portion of that, you’ll see at the end of the text is the word “spirit.” And then moving in from that—in verse 78—”visited.” See that? And then in verse 77, “people,” “salvation,” and then “prophet” up in verse 76.

So what’s happening is there’s a sequence of five words, and then the five words back out the way they came in. So this is telling us this is a demonstration to us that all of this song is to be considered one section. Okay, so it’s one completed unit based upon the repetition of these words. And these words are important—not just as a way to tell us it’s a section, but they sort of tell the whole story. The spirit of God visiting the people, bringing salvation as promised by the prophets. That’s the message of the Benedictus, and it’s the work of the Holy Spirit. So we sort of see this whole section together in a summary fashion by this repetition of words.

Notice as well that in the second section, in verse 71, what’s the purpose of this sequence? That the spirit visited his people for the salvation of them by the prophets. But what does that mean? What is a “horn of salvation”? Well, a horn is something of strength. And explicitly it said in verse 71 that “we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”

You see, this isn’t the way we think about Christmas. We think about Christmas as salvation from sin. And that’s going to be referenced later in this song. But what I tried to show you in a very quick form is that the Old Testament sets up the coming of the light as meaning the coming of the one who would give us victory over the enemies of God and the enemies of his people.

So it’s this two-seed warfare that was begun in the garden between Jesus and Satan—and Satan and his seed—between the two different groups of humanity, so to speak. That’s what’s the context for the coming of Christ. Christmas is about being delivered from our enemies. And we have real enemies. We have atheistic enemies, and we need to know that the future will bring increasingly victory over those atheistic, militant enemies. We have enemies who are Islamists. We have enemies who are Jews, just the same way the church had enemies who were Jews at its time. And it’s important that we understand that Christmas is a victory time.

It’s a victory celebration specifically in reference to defeat of our enemies. So, you know, again, it’s interesting that the Antiphons pick this up so well. There’s very little direct reference at all to salvation from sin in the seven Antiphons, but there’s a whole bunch of deliverance-from-enemy stuff going on. And there’s a whole bunch of hope going on. I mean, you have the tree trunk cut off, and a branch comes up, right? And then you have—you know—the door is shut, but Jesus comes with the key to open them. “Clavis David”—we can’t figure out the knotty problems, but Jesus is the answer.

And now we have a whole bunch of darkness that overcomes us at times—whether it’s enemies, difficulties of our own making, in our own lives—there’s darkness. And the Antiphons tell us that the message of Christmas is a message of hope. It’s new life springing forth from what we think would have killed us. It’s solution to the problems that are so knotty that we can’t think we can open them. And it’s light that comes even in the midst of darkness. And that’s important for us to hear. That is the reality. This isn’t wishful thinking. This is the true proclamation of what God has said happened 2,000 years ago that we celebrate.

God has brought eternal hope into our lives. He has assured us of victory. He has assured us of life coming forth when we thought we were dead. The solutions to our problems. Light eventually coming in to replace the darkness that we may feel or experience at a particular point in time.

It’s important that we know that. You know, I was listening to somebody talking about global warming, and how we take these measurements and then we make extrapolations and we say we’re doomed. Well, up until about a week ago, if you took measurements for the past six months and then you draw a straight-line extrapolation out from the measurements, the world will be in darkness—absolute darkness—in a very short period of time, because from June 21 to December 21, we’re losing I don’t know what it is, two or three minutes of light a day. And it looks bad, doesn’t it? I mean, if all you got is that as your little slice in time that you’re measuring, it looks really bad.

And the point of the analogy is: we’re taking a little slice in the 6,000-year history in major cycles of the world and thinking we’re making flat-line or straight extrapolations from the present into the future, and we’re discouraged. So we can see how stupid that is to make that kind of extrapolation about light and darkness. But honestly, that’s what it feels like.

I remember when I was young, I hated this time of year, you know, because I just didn’t like all the darkness, particularly up here in Oregon. Now, the older I get, quicker time goes by. I know if I just wait a couple of weeks, it’ll be June again, and everything’s great. But the point here is that it’s an analogy to your life and mine. We feel like we’re in darkness, and maybe we are in darkness. Maybe the time really is getting darker day by day for us. Whether it’s our economic situation, relationship with people—maybe we have enemies at work who are getting victory over us. It felt dark on 9/11 for the country.

There are times that all we can see is the darkness. You know, got times of bad health or, you know, snowboarding accidents, whatever it is. And all sudden we got a long spell of darkness in front of us. And it can sort of feel like these same extrapolations: my life’s over, it’s never going to get better.

Christmas is the message that the darkness is simply a predecessor to light. That in terms of God’s perspective on this thing, he’s bringing you through darkness into light. It’s a promise. That’s the gospel. Things will get better. Hope is the essence of what the gospel and the joy of Christmas is all about.

And here this is what’s going on. We’re going to have victory over our enemies. It’s a statement of fact. He has done it. We’re going to be saved from our enemies. And then notice as well that the next thing that’s told us is the very center of this is “to perform the mercy promised to our fathers.” That’s the center of the text. And I can’t take the time to show you all the connections, but hopefully, if you take this time and look at it, you’ll see this. I think this outline is pretty right on.

This first half takes us into a central section, which is that God has performed the mercy promised by our fathers and as he remembered his holy covenant. So this is the very center of what it is: the performance of mercy, the granting of mercy.

What was the center of the narrative? John. The name John. What does John mean? “Yahweh has graced us.” What’s the center of this first half of the song about Jesus? Christmas is John. Christmas is “Yahweh has performed his mercy to us.” What is the mercy? Defeat of our enemies. Okay.

Then let’s drop down now to the second part of the song about John himself. And this is a much easier structure to see. By the way, this outline came from my wife. She’s very good at developing these. Now, I had a structure for the Benedictus a couple of years ago that I shared with you, and this is better. This is way better.

In any event, so the third part of this narrative is verses 76 and following: “And you, child, in other words, John, will be called the prophet of the highest. Now he’s talking about John, not about Jesus. Now, you’ll go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways.” And at the end, “our feet are guided into the way of peace to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins.” There’s forgiveness of sins. It is part of this. Part of the way we achieve victory over enemies is through the forgiveness of our own sins. And he’s going to bring that knowledge.

And notice how that matches up with in verse 79: “to give light to those who sit in darkness.” So light and knowledge are paired here in this structure. You know, Psalm 119 says, “The entrance of your word brings light.” Isaiah says, you know, “to the law and to the prophets; if you don’t speak according to these things, there’s no light in them.” Light is connected in the scriptures to knowledge, and it is here in this particular text as well.

God is bringing light to those who dwell and sit in darkness, and this light is knowledge of salvation. And that brings us to the middle. And what’s the middle? “Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the dayspring from on high has visited us.”

So again, what was the middle of the first narrative? John—”Yahweh has graced us.” What’s the middle of the portion of the song dealing directly with Jesus? God has performed the mercy that he promised. And what’s the middle of this last half of the Benedictus dealing specifically with John? It is that the tender mercy of God has happened. So God has graced us. The mercy has been performed. The tender mercy of God brings us the dayspring from on high.

So what’s Oriens? Oriens is all about the tender mercies of God coming to us. And we’re remembering it at Christmas time with all the lights and all the arrangements that we have to remind us that you know it’s not a straight-line extrapolation from the last six months in the providence of God.

Christmas happens when the days start to lengthen. In the hemisphere in which Jesus was born—in the northern hemisphere, this is the time when the days actually start to lengthen again. So dark, dark. Jesus is born. Light. Now, we don’t know the date of Jesus’s birth. Some people think, based on this very text by the way—the course of the priests, you know, John’s father was a priest. They think the priestly course that he was in would have been ministering at a particular time. They connect up John’s birth to Jesus’s birth. It’s complicated. Some people think Jesus was conceived late December, born August or September. Some people think he was born December. Either way, the imagery is intact. Our Christmas is a celebration of the coming of the light of Jesus Christ in the midst of darkness.

And that light is the grace of God to those who sit in darkness, bringing victory over our enemies, bringing the remission of sins, and a knowledge of salvation by the remission of our sins. Now, that’s all gospel, and it’s really important to hear it, particularly if you are struggling.

You know, Christmas is a time of depression for a lot of people because it never quite measures up. Sometimes it does, but usually it doesn’t. And usually, you know, our friends aren’t as friendly as we hoped they would be. Our family isn’t as together as we kind of hoped it would be. Or we didn’t have enough money to get what we really wanted to give somebody else. Or we didn’t get what we wanted. Or we didn’t get to sing all the songs we wanted to sing. There’s always disappointments at Christmas. And so it can be a kind of a depressing time.

But remember that the whole message is that in the midst of whatever darkness we find ourselves in—and all of our celebrations are going to have some element of darkness kind of blended into them—that God says the light is coming, that God says the future is bright in spite of whatever difficulties you may be having in vocation, relationships, your own relationship with God, your own sense of peace about the world. Light is coming. We sang that song: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” written about the Civil War, you know, and probably not by a good guy, but its message is right. And the last couple of days it’s an appropriate message. While the bells of Christendom are ringing out peace, the last few days Israel has attacked Gaza, and Gaza’s getting ready—had been attacking Israel in small ways—and wars breaking out in the Middle East again.

There is no peace on earth, I said, but the bells continue to peal with the Christmas message that peace will happen. All of these warring elements, to God, ultimately will be defeated. The world will be more and more mastered by Christianity and it will be made the head and not the tail. Your own personal life is also that same story. It may seem like it’s getting worse, but you know the darkest hour is always just before the dawn. And that’s what this text is all about.

Gross darkness covers the people, and the light of God arises—not just in darkness, but in gross darkness that’s covering the people. So the Christmas message is there. Now it’s gospel, but it involves a response to it.

The response is found at the end of the first half of the song itself, speaking about Jesus. So go back to the outline, verse 72. The center of the mercy of God has come. But to what purpose? Yeah, victory. Yeah, salvation. But to what purpose specifically? The culmination of the Jesus portion of the song is verses 74 and 75.

What does he come for? “For to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear.”

Some translations say “might worship him without fear.” Our lives are described as ones that fear is put away, knowing that the long-term fix is in, that victory has come, that the lights that we see are reminder that we have no reason to fear—rather, radical atheists, Islamists, Jews, or anybody else, secularists—that are the enemies to the church. Yeah, they’re enemies. It’s stupid not to acknowledge it, because the Bible says over and over again we’re going to be delivered from them. But we’re not supposed to have fear.

The absence of fear allows us to serve him. The call of the light is to serve, to worship him. In what way? “In holiness and righteousness before him.” How often? “All the days of our life.” We’re to serve him. And if that’s too general—and it is—we can just fit whatever we want into the idea of worshipping. “I’m serving God when I’m doing stuff.” But then it gets a little more specific. It says that it’s supposed to be—every bit of your moment is about serving him in response to this great truth that he’s forgiven you your sins, and more than that, he’s going to give you victory over all your enemies. He’s going to bring light to whatever darkness you have. All that is gospel. And in belief of it, we’re supposed to consecrate ourselves anew to serve him in everything that we do at all times.

And then very specifically, it says two specific ways we’re supposed to do it: “In holiness and righteousness.” Holiness and—what’s the difference? Well, holiness has primary reference—and I don’t want to draw the lines too thick—it has primary reference to our relationship to God. Holiness in the Old Testament has Old Testament roots. The root word for holiness in the Bible, in the Old Testament, is “kadash.” “Kadesh,” I think, probably has its original etymology in “to cut” and to consecrate by means of cutting something and putting it over here.

The idea is there’s profane, secular stuff, and then there’s sacred stuff. And holiness means attending to our sacred obligations. And for the Christian, that’s all of it. That’s all of it. We’re to serve him in holiness all the days of our lives.

I hope this doesn’t offend you, but you know, I always think a lot about who we are, what’s our identity? It’s difficult, I think, in the particular world in which we find ourselves right now that has moved away from Christ and has given us a strange lack of sense of identity. I watched a movie called “Underworld.” It’s about the warfare between the warriors and the vampires. Okay? And you can think about that—two warring children. One of the kids was bit by a vampire, one bit by a wolf. Well, interesting, okay? But the point I wanted to make here is that I’m always struck by these vampire movies, particularly they have such allegiance to their lord. Right? You know, so the lord is brought back from his bloodless state or whatever it was. He and the guy that’s in charge while he’s gone, you know, gets down on a knee before him, gives him the knee.

I don’t know if John Barker is still doing it or not, but Jim Jordan always thought it’d be kind of neat if a church could—instead of rising for the benediction at the end—get down on one knee for the benediction, like knights being knighted with power and authority from the queen or from the king, now to do his will. And you know, we don’t do that because I don’t see any place in the Bible where it says it. And so, but the notion is a good one: that at the benediction, we should remember that the Lord, the King—you just feasted for a week, the Lord of the feast, I hope was present there, or you acknowledged, rather, his presence there—by a sense of holiness, that whatever you do is to be done for him and for your relationship with him.

Holiness is a sense of commitment to the sacredness of the Lord that we serve, doing things in the right way because we don’t want to offend him, acknowledging we have a Lord. And when the vampires have a better sense of lordship than we do, something’s wrong. I know it’s all literature and all that stuff, but it’s a reminder of the way cultures used to be. It’s not just vampires. It’s—they have that because in the medieval world, people had more of a sense of submission to the king. The king meant something. Now, kings have been overthrown. Democracies rule, and they don’t mean as much. But we still have a King. And we should still have a sense of consecration to him, not just, you know, for a couple hours on Sunday, but in everything.

We’re to serve him without fear in holiness all the days of our lives. So the great news is light and darkness. The proper response is a renewed commitment today to be holy, to be consecrated to him who died for your sins, who defeated all your enemies, and who is working history as Claudius David—the one who shuts, and no man can open; and opens, and no man can shut. He’s controlling history. He’s the meaning of history. He’s controlling it all. You’re in that slot of what Jesus is accomplishing in history. He is your Lord, and you should have a sense of consecration, holiness, to him.

Righteousness has to do more with relationship with each other. A synonym for righteousness is justice—conformity to a standard of law. Herman Doy has mused about God being holy in eternity, but not necessarily righteous, because his righteousness is seen in relationship to the created order. It’s seen in relationships. Now, we could say there’s righteousness between Father, Son, and Spirit in eternity. But holiness is more an eternal attribute of God—consecration. And we have that holiness. And so we’re to call to have this vertical relationship of consecration to our liege, our lord, our master, who we’re to love because of what he has done, and desire to be ruled by him, and desire to honor him with everything that we do.

And then we’re to, secondarily, we’re supposed to have righteousness, justice, treating other people with glory, giving them knowledge, having rejoicing life with them, giving them weight and glory, obeying God’s laws, certainly not stealing from each other, etc. But more than that, living rightly in relationships, living rightly as Christians in relationship. So our worship, our service to God, all the days of our life, involves holiness and righteousness.

Turn to Leviticus 19. Leviticus. What is that all about? Leviticus 19. Well, first of all, Leviticus is the book of holiness, right? I mean, if you’re going to talk about holiness, here it is. The word holiness is used more often in Leviticus than any other book. And Leviticus 19 is arguably the very center of the book of Leviticus. Structures have been written—I’ve pretty good reason to believe that it’s the center of the book of Leviticus, the theological center. And it’s a—you’ve heard me talk about it before—it’s a summation in 70 commands, kind of a commentary on the Ten Commandments. Not exactly going through the 10, but you’ll find them all woven into it. And it’s structured in a way that’s a little complicated, but its structure is kind of obvious, at least some of it.

Let’s look at it. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy because the Lord your God, I the Lord your God am holy.’”

So he says first of all, the center for the whole thing is holiness. Righteousness flows out of holiness. To try to achieve justice with our neighbors without being holy and consecrated to God in our internal comportment, department, etc.—it doesn’t cut it. Holiness is first. It was first in the text we just read in the Benedictus. It’s first here. Holiness is the beginning point.

Now, if you scan down in Leviticus 19, he says, “Be holy.” And then he says, at the end of verse three, “I am the Lord your God.” See that? End of verse three. Look at the end of verse four: “I am the Lord your God.” Okay? End of verse 10: “I am the Lord your God.” These are markers. “I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God.” This is expounding to us what holiness is. And then there’s a break.

The next section says, at the end of verse 12, “I am the Lord.” See that? At the end of verse 14, it says, “I am the Lord.” At the end of verse 16, “I am the Lord.” And at the end of this section, at the end of verse 18, “I am the Lord.”

Next section is clearly separate as it says “You shall keep my statutes.” Now we’re into different territory. So the first half of Leviticus 19 has two sections. In the first section, he says, “I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God.” The second section he says, “I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord.” Okay, so it’s easy to see.

The first section is more explicitly about holiness. Okay, so let’s read it: “Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father and keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. Don’t turn to idols nor make to yourselves any molded gods. I am the Lord your God. If you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings…”—I won’t read that whole thing, but it talks about what you’re to do with your peace offerings, your worship element. In other words, and then “when you reap the harvest of your field, be gracious to people,” in verse 9. Verse 10, “You shall not glean your vineyard.” Supposed to be gracious and beneficial to others. So compassion flowing out of a reverence to God.

And then in verse 11, the next section says, “You shall not steal. Don’t deal falsely. Don’t lie to one another. You shall not swear by my name falsely.” So then it begins a series of instructions that has more to do with—vertical relationships. When he says, “I’m the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God. I’m the Lord your God,”—he’s talking about—I’m sorry. This is where he’s talking about vertical relationships.

Be holy. Part of our holiness and consecration to God is being good dispensers of grace downward. God has graced us. We grace others. And then the next section, where he says, “I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord. I am the Lord,” these are horizontal relationships. Don’t steal from each other. It’s dealing with equals now. You see?

So Leviticus 19 is a place that will instruct us how we’re supposed to live in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives. How do we do it? Now, it’s not exactly like Leviticus 19, because that was a particular point in time, new situation, new priests, new laws, new modification or transformation of the law. But it gives us understanding. And what I’m trying to say is this: When it wants to describe holiness, how does it start? It talks about your folks, your parents, and it talks about Sabbaths, right? That’s where holiness begins.

He says, “You shall be holy. I the Lord your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere, worship, his mother and his father. Keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.” That’s the first summary statement of what holiness is.

So, yeah, we can worship God. We can serve him. We know we’re servants of him all the time. Well, does that mean you’ve committed to being holy all the time? Well, I can be holy. I just won’t swear and won’t do bad things. Well, no. Holiness is a little more than that. It’s easy to be holy to a God you haven’t seen. But when God represents to you his godness, his rulerness over you by means of parents or bosses or elders or policeman—will you worship that authority that God has established? That’s the test of holiness.

Holiness, if holiness is the basis for everything else, the way you treat people in authority, and particularly your parents—this is the beginning of holiness. And then how you treat the Sabbaths, the structure, the liturgy that doesn’t seem to have a reason. We can make up reasons, but it doesn’t matter what the reason is. He gives us a cycle. And holiness—it says, “Lord God, I know you bring light in darkness. And I know that the way to get light is to keep moving through the darkness, being holy in spite of the darkness, having right relationship to my parents and authorities and to you. You’re my Lord. You’ve sent underlords, and I should obey and reverence those underlords. And as my Lord, you control my time. I don’t get it. I don’t know why for one day out of seven I can’t do some things I’d like to do, but I’m going to do it. I’m in darkness. I don’t have knowledge, but I’ll do it. I’m holy. I’m committed to my Lord.”

And out of that holiness, then Leviticus—then the second section—”Don’t steal from each other. Be just in our obligations toward each other.” So this is what God wants us to do. He wants us to believe light has come, taking us out of darkness. And he wants us then on the basis of that to commit ourselves afresh to serving him without fear.

He’s defeated any enemies you’ve got. Don’t fear. Worship him. Serve him in two ways: holiness and righteousness, in all times and in all places.

Turn to Isaiah 60, if you would. This will be where we close. Isaiah 60. I said earlier, you know, that Isaiah 60 is about God’s light coming upon us, but also we’re to be light-bearers to others, right? “Do all things without grumbling and complaining, maybe blameless and harmless, shining as lights in the midst of a dark world.” The kids know that verse. We’re supposed to be lights. Not only do we receive light, but if we’re holy and righteous, we’ll shine as lights in the midst of a darkened world.

Now, Isaiah 60 has a nice little structure, too. And I don’t—it’s not printed out for you, but it’s really easy. He says, “Arise, Shine.” And then in the end of verse three—see the second half of verse three: “The brightness of your rising.” See that? Arise, Shine. The brightness, the shining of your arising. Ah, it’s obviously little bookends.

“Your light has come.” And then responding to that, beginning of verse three, “The Gentiles shall come to your light. Your light has come, and the Gentiles shall come to your light.” Okay. Now, Isaiah 60, you have to read it as referencing the Savior, but also all those who are in union with Christ, the church. Our light has come. Our light—the Gentiles will come to our light. We got to have light in order to bring the Gentiles. They’re like moths to the flame. God rules over them, but they desire him. We’ll talk more about that next week.

The Gentiles desire Jesus. And then it says the end of verse one, “The glory of the Lord.” And then end of verse two, “His glory will be seen upon you.” Glory and glory. And then at the very end of verse one is “risen upon you,” and corresponding to that in the middle of verse two, “The Lord will arise over you.” It’s “risen upon you, the Lord arises over you.” You see, it’s very clear this structure. It’s drawing us to a center.

What center? It’s drawing us to this center: “For behold, the darkness shall cover the people, and deep darkness the earth—rather, and deep darkness the people.” That’s the center. That’s—yeah, you know, we can think of that and say, “Yeah, that’s good,” because my life a lot of times is found right there in the darkness, and I need all those statements of hope. But there’s something else going on with this being at the center.

What’s deep darkness? I thought at first maybe it’s decretation. It’s like deep sleep. It’s not deep darkness. If you look at this phrase in the Old Testament, it is almost always associated with the coming of God. God dwells in deep darkness. When he comes—several times in the Bible, in the Old Testament—this exact phrase is used. He comes. There’s clouds round about him, and deep darkness is with him. But then as you get past the deep darkness that is surrounding God, there’s the bright light of his countenance.

Well, so what? Well, the amazing thing is that it’s not as if God found you in deep darkness that was caused in some way unbeknownst to him and then brings you light. Not only do you have hope knowing that Jesus is light in the midst of your darkness, but in Isaiah 60, one of these penultimate characteristics of the light of God coming to a darkened people—your darkness is in actuality the approach of God to you. You see that? You don’t get the light coming to shine on you unless you go through the deep darkness. At least in Isaiah 60’s terminology, deep darkness happens first.

Depression, financial upset, broken relationships, whatever you want to fill in the blank that gives you darkness at this Christmas Eve, Christmas depression—it all is, in some marvelous way that we can’t understand, God bringing you to light. I believe that’s true because we’re so used to the glimmer of things that aren’t light. Frequently, what the Lord God does is he brings us down. He turns the real light way down, and he makes us desire the light of his countenance.

I think that explains why the center of this text—of the coming of God as light—is deep darkness. It’s a reminder to us that it’s God himself who is reaching us through his approach, and his approach decreates, as it were, it blows apart the false lights that we’ve got, and it brings us into deep darkness. But if we persevere in holiness and righteousness, then light begins to shine in a way that is unbelievable on the other side of that.

May the Lord God grant us a knowledge of his sovereignty in the deep darkness, even a commitment to holiness and righteousness in this new year—all the days of our life—to serve him in holiness and righteousness, to be men and women that have a sense of who we are, that is, consecration to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. We’re knights in shining armor. We’re holy ones, and we’re chivalrous. We’ve got a code in terms of how we treat one another that we shouldn’t break.

That’s who we are in Jesus Christ. That’s what he says we’re supposed to do. That’s why he came. That’s the great message of Christmas: He’s making us knights in shining armor who are chivalrous toward others. He’s making us holy and righteous by his coming forth. And even the darkness is preparation for him making us better servants of him.

Praise God for who he is. Let’s pray. Father, forgive us for unbelief. Forgive us for a lack of knowledge of your word. Forgive us, Father, for often being drawn like moths to the wrong lights. Thank you for the darkness that you bring into our lives to cause us to focus on the true light, the true life that is the light of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ. Make us this year, Lord God. As we come forward, may we consecrate ourselves afresh. May we resolve in the coming year to be holy and to be righteous.

In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.