Our sermon text for consideration this morning
is found in Isaiah chapter 60, verses 1 to 6.
We read, 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. 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 hill. Then you will look and be radiant.
Your heart will throb and swell with joy. The
wealth and the seas will be brought to you. To
you the riches of the nations will come. Herds
of camels will cover your land. Young camels
of Midian and Ephah and all from Sheba will come.
bearing gold and incense. As you read those words,
did you kind of see the picture Isaiah was painting?
Did you see that shining light that just pierced
the darkness? People being drawn to that light,
bearing their gifts along the way from all over
the world? Whenever I read those words, the image
that comes to my mind is the image of a lighthouse.
And you know, I've never really seen a lighthouse
from the sea before. I've done the tourist thing,
right? You go and you kind of walk through the
lighthouse and they show you the lighthouse keeper's
quarters and they tell you the history and the
story behind it. I've done that. But I've never
been at sea at night when the sky is overcast
and the moon and the stars aren't shining. I
don't know what it's like to sit in a boat and
have those waves just blindly hit you, wondering
when the next one's going to come. And to know
that the shore is out there, but to be unable
to see it, it's got to be an unsettling thing.
And in that kind of situation, those lighthouses,
they serve a vital function, even in the days
of GPS, because they show you where the land
is and they guide you in. And when they fail
to do their job, the consequences are disastrous.
In 1860, the lighthouse of Cape St. George was
commissioned. It was along a section of the Australian
coast that was problematic, right near Jervis
Bay. And they commissioned it, and they got started
building it, but it was a comedy of errors to
begin with because the maps didn't line up, and
the contractor wanted to build it a little closer
to the quarry to make sure he could save some
money. And at the end of the day, they ended
up building the lighthouse about two and a half
miles away from where they needed it. And that
two and a half miles meant that ships approaching
from the south could barely see it. And ships
approaching from the north couldn't see it at
all. And in its short time of operation, there
were 23 shipwrecks along that small part of shore
it was meant to guard. Because it didn't do its
job. So what do you do with a lighthouse that
doesn't shine? Well, what they did is they ended
up building another one. They took down the light.
They decommissioned it. But even still, you could
see it once in a while from the south, and it
became misleading. And so you know what they
did with it? From 1917 to 1922, they used it
as target practice for the Australian Royal Navy.
Today you can visit it, and this is what it looks
like. It's a ruin and a reminder of what happens
to a lighthouse that doesn't shine. Israel was
a lighthouse of the ancient world. From the time
God told Abraham the promise would come from
his family, that was their role, that was their
identity, and everything about them pointed to
that. The Old Testament laws of Moses made them
different, made them weird, made them strange,
and it's as if it set them upon a point like
a lighthouse to shine out to the world. And at
the center of all they were and did was a temple,
and its sacrifices and its services pointed to
the glory of the Lord, that thing that makes
God great. And if you think about all the stories
in the Old Testament of the glory of the Lord,
that cloud the Israelites followed out of Egypt,
through the Red Sea and to the Promised Land,
and all the other times it appears, it always
has this in common. God is acting to save. Because
that's one of the things that makes our God great.
He does what He says. But by the time Isaiah
writes, that light was flickering at best. Because
they forgot who they were. And they broke the
law of Moses, and they neglected the worship
of the temple, and they followed other gods.
And instead of being a people that could draw
people to the truth, they were chasing them away,
and so many were being lost. So what do you do
with a lighthouse that won't shine? God tried
to wake them up. During Isaiah's time, the Assyrians
came, and they destroyed the northern tribes,
and they came right to the doorstep of Jerusalem.
If you remember the story, they surrounded before
the Lord delivered them. But still, they didn't
learn their lesson. In the end, they would end
up like the lighthouse of the Cape of St. George,
a ruin, as they face the consequences of failing
to shine, to be what God called them to be. You
see, we are the lighthouse of the world. We are
the people that promise today, and we are the
people now who have a chance to show that love
to others. And now as we sit here at the end
of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, it's maybe
a time for us to take stock on all the opportunities
God gave us over the past year. And if you were
to play it back like a highlight reel, if you
were to think back on all the experiences you
had in the past year, what would we see? How
many times would we see situations where we showed
people who our God is and what he did for us
through our words and actions? And how many times
would we see... People that hid who they were
because we were ashamed of him. How many people
were there this past year? We had a chance to
lead to the truth. And how many people do we
drive away with thoughtless words and careless
actions? Selfishness. You see, you and I have
such a valuable role to play. To some people
in our lives, we're the only lights they have.
How many times do we waste opportunity after
opportunity? And what is God supposed to do with
the light that won't shine? See, when Isaiah
writes the words of Isaiah 60, he is not writing
to the people of his time. He's writing to generations
that would come. Generations that would live
in the aftermath of what the people of his time
had done. People that would live in the ruin
of Jerusalem, live with the temple that had been
destroyed, live in captivity in faraway lands.
And he told them something. They had broken promise
after promise, but the thing that makes God great
is that he does what he says, oftentimes in spite
of us. And so despite all that had happened,
he tells them in Isaiah 60 that light would shine.
Let me read it again. 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. 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 hip. Then you will look and
be radiant. Your heart will throb and swell with
joy, the wealth and the seas we brought to you.
To you the riches of the nations will come. Herds
of camels will cover your land, young camels
of Midian and Ephah, and all from Sheba will
come, bearing gold and incense. In spite of all
that had happened, in spite of all they'd experienced,
in spite of the ruin that was Jerusalem, and
the tragedy of a temple that was destroyed, God
says Israel would serve its purpose. That light
would come. And can you see the picture? Of this
people living in ruins, shining once more. Of
a light that pierces a darkness, and people from
all over the world being drawn to it. People
that were scattered, their sons and their daughters,
it says, coming back home. People they had never
known. Kings from other parts of the world being
drawn to that same light. And at the center of
it all is the glory of the Lord. That thing that
makes our God great. And one of the things that
makes him great is that he acts to save. He doesn't
just make promises, he keeps them. He doesn't
wait for us to come to him. He finds us through
his word, through baptism, and he draws us in.
And so the wise men appear. And there are so
many things about the wise men we don't know.
We don't really know exactly where they came
from. We don't know exactly who they were. We
don't know how in the world they associated that
star they saw with the promise. And we certainly
don't understand how it led them right to the
house of Joseph and Mary like a GPS. But we know
this. They belong there. I think it's funny how
often we set up those nativity scenes, right?
You got the angels, you have the shepherds, you
have the wise men, and then sometimes you take
the wise men, you put them way off in the distance
because they weren't maybe there when the shepherds
were. And that's true chronologically. But thematically,
the shepherds are as much a part of that picture
as Joseph and Mary were. Because he is a savior
for the nations, and that's what Epiphany is
all about. It's remembering that the wise men
were just the beginning of a procession that
has went through the ages since. And think of
how many people have been drawn to the light
of that dawn. Ethiopians who maybe first heard
about the gospel through the Ethiopian eunuch
that Philip baptized. To Chinese Christians that
according to church tradition were first reached
by the Apostle Thomas. To Christians sitting
in America today that procession has continued
from all over the globe. Because God acts. God
saves. God finds his people from distant corners,
and he brings us together to be a part of one
body. And now here we sit. And we are surrounded
by the gifts that people before us have brought.
As we sing hymns we didn't compose, we confess
creeds we didn't write. And just like them, we
are gathered from all different places in life.
And who knows at what part of the procession
we find ourselves in, huh? Maybe we're toward
the ends of the parade. Maybe we're more towards
the middle than you realize. Whatever the case,
now you and I as Christians are people that have
been brought here by our God. People that look
at that child in the manger and have a chance
to celebrate that this Savior is for me. Who
see that Savior go to the cross and know He bore
my darkness there. And that when He walked out
of the empty tomb, that light shone for me. That
is my life, my resurrection, just as it is yours.
And then the vantage point changes, doesn't it?
And we realize that now we are the lighthouses
of the world. And like I said, when you think
back on the previous year, perhaps we think we
look a lot like that lighthouse of Cape St. George.
Just a wreck, because we think about all the
wasted opportunities, all the times that instead
of drawing people to the truth, we chase them
away. Remember what it is that makes our God
great. He acts. He forgives. And he gives us
a new day in which to serve, and so maybe that's
not the best picture for us. This might be a
better one. This is the Tower of Hercules. It
stands on the peninsula along the coast of northwest
Spain. It's a lighthouse that was built by the
Romans in the first century, and it's still in
operation today. Still shining as it always had.
You see, that's us. For all of our failings and
all of our faults, God wipes us clean in his
blood, forgives us for the past, and he gives
us a new year. And think about all that lay in
front of you this year. And I don't know what
blessings and what challenges you're going to
face. I don't know everything that stands around
the corner, but I know this. As long as the world
turns, there are more that God will bring to
that light. And you play such a role. Think of
the people in your life. Think of the people
you have a chance to know that maybe no one else
in the building does. People that maybe you are
the only light they have in their life. As you
head into 2026, know that God has given you opportunity
after opportunity to show them the love that
Christ has shown for you. Take a moment to see
their faces. Take a moment to think about those
opportunities. And then hear the words that God
spoke through Isaiah so many years ago. Arise
and shine, for your light has come. Amen. Thanks
for listening to Emmanuel's Sermon Podcast. If
you'd like to learn more about Emmanuel, you
can follow us on Facebook or visit us at imluth
.org. That's I -M -M -L -U -T -H dot O -R -G.
Have a great day.