Dayspring

As I read through the Bible this year, I’m noticing the difference between the Old and New Testaments, particularly the action that takes place. While the Old Testament relates history and has many passages of narrative and action, much of it is about the demands of God and what will happen to His people because they have failed to measure up. But when I started reading Matthew, the action increased and the focus changed. Instead of talking about God’s wrath and the peoples’ failures, the focus turns to Jesus.

I try to imagine what it was like for the people of Israel in those days. They had been several hundred years without a prophet, without hearing from God. Would most of them have lost hope? Would their faith be dull and without enthusiasm?

Then Zacharias and Elizabeth had a baby, unusual because they were old, and exciting because “Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied” (Luke 1:67). Those around him must have been overjoyed. At last, God was communicating with His people.

While the people observed, God gave this new father a name for the little boy. He would be called John because an angel had told them this should be his name. The crowds were certain he would be an unusual child, but Zacharias was given a preview. He spoke saying that the Lord had indeed visited His people and delivered them from their enemies that they might serve Him without fear. He spoke also of God’s covenants and the promise of a Deliverer.

Then he spoke, again under the power of the Holy Spirit, saying, “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 the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

His child, John, came to prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus would soon arrive and everything would change. Dayspring speaks of that light that floods a dark earth signaling the arrival of a new day. The Lord was coming to give light to those in spiritual darkness like dawn comes to light a world that is in physical darkness.

This morning before reading Luke, I read from Matthew 7:24 to the end of chapter 9. In those few pages, Jesus told parables, impressed the crowds with His authority, cleansed a leper, healed the servant of a roman centurion with a word, healed Peter’s mother-in-law with a touch, cast out many demons, healed all who were sick, made clear the demands expected of anyone who wanted to follow Him, calmed a storm at sea, cast demons into some pigs, healed and forgave a paralytic, called a tax collector to follow Him, enjoyed eating with tax collectors and sinners, rebuked and corrected the ignorance of the Pharisees, healed a woman who had been ill for twelve years, gave sight back to two blind men, restored the speech of a mute man and cast a demon out of him, and raised a child from the dead.

After all this, He went to all the cities and villages, “teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” He was moved with compassion for the multitudes and saw in them potential for a great harvest of souls.

Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, ends with the threat of a curse on the earth. Matthew, the first book of the New Testament, is filled with narrative about the amazing life of Jesus Christ. No wonder it is called “new.” The transformation in the working of God (and the lives of His people) is dramatic because the Dayspring has arrived, a new light has dawned. No longer do people need to be in the dark or lost in their sin. They have the Light of the Lord. He is the Dayspring from on high.

Jesus Christ amazes me. The difference He makes in history amazes me. Nothing in the world will ever be as dark and as hopeless as it was before the dawn, before He came and brought light. Read it. Be amazed too.