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I
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will extol thee, O Lord; for
thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. 2 O Lord my
God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. 3 O Lord, thou hast
brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not
go down to the pit. 4 Sing unto the Lord,
O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. 5 For his anger endureth
but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a
night, but joy cometh in the morning. 6 And in my prosperity I
said, I shall never be moved. 7 Lord, by thy favour
thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I
was troubled. 8 I cried to thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I
made supplication. 9 What profit is
there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee?
shall it declare thy truth? 10 Hear, O Lord, and
have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper. 11 Thou hast turned for me
my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with
gladness; 12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to
thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee
for ever. (Psalm
30:1-12)
In
the Book of Amos there is what some have termed an ‘arcane’ prophecy: 9 And it shall come to
pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at
noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day: 10 And I will turn your
feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up
sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as
the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. 11 Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of
bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord: 12 And they shall wander
from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro
to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. (Amos
8:9-12) What do
these various prophecies (there are more than one) mean in relation to the
Coming of the Light?
Were
it not for the midnight darkness, there could be no sunrise. We have mentioned
before the pervasive silence and darkness that extended from the time of the
prophet Malachi until the Gospel of St. Matthew. God was silent. The people sat
in darkness. The Old Testament gave early revelation that the people would walk
in darkness for that long, dark night: The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them hath the light shined. (Isaiah
9:2) They walked
so long in darkness that they made themselves at home there and sat down: The
people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death light is sprung up. (Matt
4:16) Though the
people may have mourned for a night, they experienced joy in the morning of
Mary Magdalene’s visit to the Garden Tomb on resurrection morning.
I
hope that we can see how well the Old and New Testament Scriptures corroborate
each other. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that
I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the
clear day: How do the words of Amos corroborate the events of the Gospels?
Do you remember when the darkness prevailed upon the earth at noonday and
persisted until the death of the King of Glory? Now from the sixth hour
there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth
hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani? that
is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matt
27:45-46) In the
Hebrew computation of hours, the sixth hour is precisely noon, and the ninth
hour is 3 PM – the exact time of the death of our Lord on the cross.
What
kind of day was that Good Friday more than 2,000 years ago? Amos gives us a
hint – I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every
head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end
thereof as a bitter day. Baldness represents deep mourning. Remember the
courageous women who remained at the base of the cross with the Apostle John.
They mourned with great bitterness. Thousands did so from that moment including
the bitter tears of three days of Peter. We still mourn that death in knowing
that it was our sins that compelled Christ to the cross (as the mourning of
an only son – the only Begotten Son of God). But
all of this represents the COMING LIGHT. There was darkness in Israel for those
four hundred years, and there was extreme mourning for the three days that our
Lord lay in the Tomb. weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in
the morning.
A
very large part of the world still sits in darkness. That darkness is clearly
pervasive in our own nation and even neighborhoods. But His Elect are the
reflected Light of the earth just as Christ is the true Light of the world –
just as the reflected light of the moon gets its light-source from the Sun.
Christ is our Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2). But that Divine Light continues
to lighten men today who sit in darkness. He is always the COMING Light.
Our
Lord was the Coming Light from before the foundation of the world. Forasmuch
as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver
and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the
world, but was manifest in these last times for you. (1
Peter 1:18-20)
During those dark centuries of four hundred years when men languished in
darkness, many sought desperately for the Light, but found it not. The Word of
the Lord was so rare that it was sought from sea to sea. Again, as Amos tells
us: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in
the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the
words of the Lord: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the
north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord,
and shall not find it. The same is beginning in our own day, too. Can
you imagine how difficult it is to find a church in your community which does
not use a corrupt modern Bible translation that practically nullifies the truth
of God’s Word? I searched far and wide before discovering the Anglican Orthodox
Church before I discovered such a church in that fellowship.
Such
a famine is painful and disheartening, but for every dark day, there comes a
sunny, cloudless sky. The Advent of Christ was foreordained before the worlds
were made; and it was reflected in the first deaths on earth – those innocent
and beautiful creatures that God had to kill to make hides to cover the
nakedness of Adam and Eve. Imagine the hurt in God’s heart in
knowing what those innocent animals represented in that sacrifice which would
be made at Calvary Mountain.
Remember
the promise being confirmed to Abraham at the ordeal of Mt. Moriah in offering
up his only son. The Angel of the Lord restrained him and provided a ram for
the sacrifice because God would not require such a sacrifice that only He could
merit. The words of Abraham are telling, if you read the correct Bible
translation. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father:
and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the
wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said,
My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both
of them together. (Gen 22:7-8) Isaac would, indeed, carry
the wood for his own sacrifice up Mt. Moriah just as Christ would carry the
wood for His own sacrifice up the same mountain, but the similarities end
there. Isaac was spared in favor of a Savior.
For
the committed Christian, the Light of Christ is coming daily into his life. In
fact, our first awakening thoughts should be to thank our Lord for His
bountiful benefits.
This
is the Advent Season – a time in the Church calendar during which we observe
the promises of a coming Savior to the world. Our yearning hearts are satisfied
for we know the terms of our salvation have been satisfied in Christ just as
expressed by the suffering Job: For I know that my redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the
earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body,
yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes
shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.
(Job 19:25-27)
