Advent Day 8: Isaiah 9:1-7

Week 2: The Light of Faith

In the years and weeks leading up to Jesus’ birth, faith began to stir in the people God was calling to play a role in Christ’s earthly life. This week, we’ll examine the examples of faith revealed to us in Scripture as the weary world waited for the true light to begin to shine.

Read & Journal

Read Isaiah 9:1-7. Consider these questions:

• What do these verses reveal to you about Jesus’ character and purpose? Jot down a list as you read.

• Compare that list to the one you compiled last week. Did you add any additional items to the list? Why do you think these things jumped out to you this week?

• Dwell on verse 2. How has Jesus brought light into your darkness this week?

• This prophecy was written to people in oppression who were waiting for the Messiah to come. What do these verses reveal about the state of the world at that time? About the state of the peoples’ hearts?

Ponder

A land of deep darkness (NLT). The land of darkness (CSB). The land of the shadow of death (NKJV). The Greek version reads: “a land where death casts its shadow.”1 Clearly, biblical scholars have translated the phrase in slightly different ways, but the idea of the second half of Isaiah 9:2 stays the same. These people in this passage were living in a dark time, when the pall of death and destruction constantly hung over them. Political oppression, yes. But it’s more than that. These people were living in spiritual darkness and the heavy weight of the wages of their sin was too heavy a burden for them to bear. They were living in a dark land, but they were doing so with darkened hearts.

It’s into this world that Jesus came. It’s into those darkened hearts—so like ours—that He is born. We too live in a world that seems full of hopeless darkness. Sometimes, faith can feel futile and the shadow of death can seem too near—but the Light has come.

This week, we’ll begin to study the examples of faith sprinkled throughout the birth narratives of Jesus, from Zechariah and Elizabeth to Mary and Joseph and beyond. In spite of darkness and destruction, long periods of waiting and scorn, these men and women walked in faithfulness, believing that what God had said was true. In the darkness we face this week, we can do the same, turning our eyes to the Light and trusting that what He has said is true.

1 New Living Translation Study Bible notes. (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 2008).