Note: This post concludes a two-part Advent series I’ve titled The Hope We Carry.
⬇️ If you missed Part 1, Darkness Before Dawn, you can read it below before continuing.
🕯️ The Hope We Carry Pt. 1
Note: If you follow the Christian liturgical calendar, you know we are in the middle of Advent. This post is the first of two in a mini-Advent series I’ve titled The Hope We Carry.
Two weeks ago, we sat with Isaiah’s diagnosis of the world.
But Isaiah never intended his words to end in diagnosis.
Biblical prophecy, after all, is not merely about naming what is broken; it is about announcing what God intends to do about it.
Isaiah’s declaration is striking not only for what it says, but for how it says it:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
Isaiah 9:2 NIV
The verbs matter.
Isaiah speaks as though the future has already occurred.
The light has dawned.
This prophetic tense does not deny present darkness; it announces divine certainty.
God’s promised action is so assured that it can be spoken of as accomplished before it is fully seen.
When the Gospels recount Jesus’ birth and ministry, they do so with Isaiah’s words echoing in the background.
Matthew’s Gospel makes the connection explicit, locating the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee and declaring that this region, once named by Isaiah as a place of deep darkness, is now the first to see the promised light.
13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali— 14 to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: 15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
Matthew 4:13-16 NIV
John’s Gospel goes even further, lifting Isaiah’s imagery into a cosmic register:
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:4-5 NIV
What Isaiah promised, the Gospels proclaim.
Yet, the manner of fulfillment remains surprising.
The light did not arrive through domination or spectacle.
It did not announce itself with political power or religious force.
Instead, God chose incarnation.
The eternal Word became flesh.
The Creator entered creation.
The Light entered the darkness from within.
The Christian claim is not that God shouted instructions from a distance, but that He stepped into the human condition, taking it upon Himself.
Salvation did not descend as an abstract idea; it arrived as a vulnerable child, born into poverty, obscurity, and political occupation.
However, the birth of Jesus did not immediately alleviate the world’s suffering.
But something decisive did happen: the story turned.
The New Testament consistently frames Jesus not merely as a teacher or reformer, but as the beginning of a new creation. What began in Genesis, creation emerging from darkness, begins again in Bethlehem.
The light that dawns is not symbolic optimism; it is ontological change.
Reality itself has been altered.
From this point forward, darkness is no longer ultimate.
Sin is no longer sovereign.
Death is no longer final.
The Light has come, and the darkness cannot undo that fact.
Reflection Questions
Even though these are not red-letter words, they can help us work the red-letter life.
1. Since the Light has already come in Jesus, how does that reality reshape the way you interpret the darkness you still encounter in your life, relationships, and the world around you?
2. In what specific ways might God be inviting you to live as a person of new creation this Christmas, not by escaping the world’s brokenness, but by bearing witness to the Light within it?
As you reflect, I invite you to listen to “Never Lost,” a song that echoes the Advent confession that the Light has come and the darkness will not prevail.
May its words strengthen the hope you carry.
Work These Words
Work These Words is the first newsletter from the “with Sean Dreher” Substack. It focuses on exploring the words of Jesus and how to put them into practice in the modern world.
The name comes from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Matthew 7:24-25 in The Message:
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.”
Most times, I write alone. Occasionally, I’ll invite members of the ministerial team from Kingdom South to lend their voices. But always, the aim is the same: to help you work the words of Jesus into your life.
Merry Christmas!