Isaiah 60:1-6  

A Light to the Nations

Verse 3 says to us, “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Can we imagine a light that bright?  Can we picture a light so magnetic as to draw the nations into its brightness?  Dare we believe there’s a light that can make tender the hearts and un-stiffen the necks of this world’s rulers?

Ernie Campbell was my Homiletics professor.  There’s nothing lukewarm about Ernie.  I liked that and I know it offended others.  One of his statements I remember is this:  “We don’t know enough to be hopeless.”  Sometimes I think the grindstone has worn the spunk, the dreaming and the sizzle for life right out of us.  We get to where life makes us feel hopeless.  So the trick is to look for signs.

Jimmy Carter’s post-presidential life isn’t filled with playing golf and the like.  It’s been about literally picking up hammer and nail for Habitat for Humanity. It’s been about negotiating for peace and fighting poverty.  He’s been a sign of hope.

New York City Baptist preacher Gardner Taylor’s wife found her ministry in taking the church van at night to the neighborhood populated by prostitutes and drug dealers.  She’d open up the van and serve sandwiches and cocoa. 

One night the police made a sweep,  arrested the prostitutes and along with them, Mrs. Taylor.  They were booked, fingerprinted and locked up.  All Mrs. Taylor had to do was make a phone call or show an ID and she would have been sprung.  But she stayed the night with the others.  Another sign of hope.

The prophet spoke to a people who had lived through the Babylonian exile.  He told them to look around, to look up.  He proclaimed God’s bright presence in their midst. 

He calls to us, too.  Dare we believe there’s a light that can make tender the hearts and un-stiffen the necks of this world’s rulers?  

This is surely a time to work for, pray for and live toward the gathering of the nations in peace and hope, in joy and compassion. 

It’s a time to begin with oneself.  That’s part of the Advent promise:  in the unlikely place of your life or mine, peace can begin and grow. 

And that’s a sign!