Christ our Light.
To whom and to what extent the Messiah should "give light" probably Zacharias did not know. He may have limited the blessing, in his mind, to the people of Israel; or, inspired and illumined of God, he may have had a larger and truer outlook. We, at any rate, are unable to confine our thoughts to Jewry; we see in the Sun of Righteousness, in the Dayspring from on high, a celestial luminary "whose going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." To us it is "the Light which, coming into the world, enlighteneth every one."
I. THE DEGREES OF DARKNESS in which the world was shrouded when the Dayspring rose. It was a dark hour when Jesus Christ was born. "Darkness covered the earth." But the shadows were deeper in some lands than in others; some minds were more lost and buried in the thick darkness than others were.
1. The dim twilight of Judaism—a twilight, not of the morning, but of the evening. For Judaism had passed out of its manhood into its dotage, out of its strength and spirituality into a dreary and lifeless formalism. It had, indeed, escaped from idolatry, and it was free from the worst excesses of the pagan world; but of a pure piety, a spiritual and acceptable service, it knew but little. Compared, however, with surrounding peoples, the Jews may be said to have stood in the twilight of truth.
2. The darkness of philosophy. For philosophy was groping in the darkness; it had felt or was feeling its way out of the absurdities of polytheism and idolatry; it touched—but only here and there—the grand truth of monotheism; but it was peering in the direction of pantheism and atheism. "The world by wisdom knew not God." And even where it did reach the idea of one living God, it could not tell how he was to be worshipped, how his favor was to be won, what were the relations he desired to sustain to mankind.
3. The thick darkness of paganism. If the philosophers "sat in darkness," the idolaters of uncivilized communities were "in the shadow of death." What a death in life is the existence of those who are buried in the most blighting superstitions and the most debasing habits! There indeed "the light is as darkness;" it moves us to a profound pity as we think of it. We are not surprised to read in the text of—
II. THE COMPASSION OF THE FATHER OF MEN IN VIEW OF IT. "The tender mercy of our God" was called forth by the sad spectacle of a world in deep shadow, a race without the Light of life. At their best, men were far enough from truth, from righteousness, from the love of God; at their worst, they had utterly gone astray, "stumbling on the dark mountains" of error and of iniquity. Well might the God of all pity compassionate such a lost race as this.
III. THE VISIT OF THE HEAVENLY DAYSPRING. "The Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light." Jesus Christ came to be the "Light of the world;" and such he is. He has illumined all the way from the blackness of darkness of sin to the light and glory of heaven. What precions rays of light has the Divine Teacher shed on
Let us draw near to him who is the Light of the human world, let us walk in the light of his reviving truth, "that we may be the children of light," and dwell in immortal glory.—C.