Bible reading: Isaiah 60:1-7.

Message.

I don’t know how many people today read the books by Robert Louis Stevenson, but I suspect that most folk know of them: “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, “Kidnapped” and of course “Treasure Island”. However being an author was not the career RLS’s parents would have chosen for him; they would have preferred him to have been a civil engineer more specifically, a builder of lighthouses.

For that was the profession that ran in the family: his grandfather Robert Stevenson was responsible for engineering at least 15 major lighthouses around Scotland, including the incredible achievement of Bell Rock off the coast of Arbroath. Robert’s three sons, one of whom was Robert Louis Stevenson’s father Thomas, were responsible for building many more but RLS himself never felt attracted to this work. However he was well aware of its importance and wrote: “Whenever I smell salt water, I know that I am not far from one of the works of my ancestors. When the lights come out at sundown along the shores of Scotland, I am proud to think they burn more brightly for the genius of my father”. It’s impossible to calculate how many ships and, of course, lives have been saved through this family’s genius.

Navigating along a rocky coast on a dark and stormy night must have been terrifying in the days of sail. With the moon and stars obscured by clouds, and without modern aids such as radar or GPS, it was almost impossible for sailors to know exactly where they were. They must have strained to see even the faintest glimmer of an oil lamp in a house above the cliffs which would give them an idea of how far they were from shore. To see the beam of a lighthouse shining out; and, moreover, to know from its intermittent flashes which lighthouse it was, must have been an enormous comfort and help to them. They weren’t safe in harbour yet, but hopefully they would arrive safety.

I wonder how many people, communities and even nations feel like those sailors of old? Perhaps they are individuals in the midst of difficult family situations or facing illness with little prospect of a cure, whose future seems to be one darkness and despair. Perhaps they are communities centred around a major employer which is about to close down, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. Perhaps they are refugees, stranded between borders in miserable camps, who face a daily struggle to survive. Or perhaps they are nations entangled in war, fearing the bombardment of drones and with little or no trust in peace negotiations in which they have no say. We can only imagine the hopeful thrill that any of these would sense if they saw a strong and certain light illuminating their darkness.

This leads me to today’s Bible passage which begins, “Arise, shine, for your light has come” – encouraging words to a nation which, after decades of darkness, was struggling to recapture something of its former glory. To understand this passage correctly, we must – as we must always do – look at its setting. And the most obvious thing is that we’re at the beginning of chapter 60 in Isaiah: in other words we can’t read it without thinking of the 59 chapters that come before it. You may know that there is quite a lot of debate about the book of Isaiah: for instance, was it all written by one person or is it in fact made up of three sections, each by a different author? There are also questions about its timescale, as some of it seems to predict the downfall of Jerusalem in 586BC, with some leading members of the Jewish nation taken to exile in Babylon, while its later sections seem to have been written around 80 years later, with Babylon’s empire fallen and the Jews coming back to rebuild their city and their land.

I’m no Old Testament scholar so I’ll leave those questions hanging in the air; but I do want to say two things. Firstly, that Isaiah 59 is full of doom and darkness: “Justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead”. I also want to say that, if our chapter was indeed written after the exiles had returned from Babylon (and that does seem likely), then we should place it beside the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which tell us about the trials and tribulations of rebuilding Jerusalem’s temple and city walls.

Well, I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out; I hope I haven’t bored you too much! What’s clear is that we have a total contrast to the previous chapter, where darkness and gloom, injustice and despair seem to be the order of the day: suddenly the radiant light of God’s glory blazes forth and makes everything look different. This language isn’t new, of course: way back in chapter 2 Isaiah’s readers are enjoined to “walk in the light of the Lord”; chapter 9 asserts that “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of deep darkness”; and chapter 58 says, “if you spend your-selves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday”. Perhaps the most significant references come in chapters 42 and 49, where God (for it is he who is speaking) says, “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, so my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth”. That sounds familiar: so where have we heard it before? Oh yes, uttered by Simeon at Jesus’ dedication in the Temple. John, too, talks about the true light for everyone coming into the world.

As Christians, we take this light to be Jesus; after all, he himself said, “I am the light of the world”, more than once. But the first readers of this book wouldn’t have made that connection; in fact they couldn’t, as Jesus came onto the scene several centuries after it was written. No; this passage was originally addressed to the city of Jerusalem – we only find this out several verses beyond today’s text, with several hints about “rebuilding the walls” and its gates “standing open” to all. That would certainly encourage people in Ezra and Nehemiah’s time, who were physically placing stones upon stones and rehanging the city’s gates. But it could cause us a problem if we were to take it literally, as I guess some people do. I don’t think we’re looking at a city set at 31.7769° North and 35.2224° East; I think we’re looking ahead to the city of God in Revelation which has no need of sun or moon because God himself illuminates it at all times. This is the hope we often talk about at Advent; it can also be our hope as we begin a new year.

I suspect that many of us are looking ahead into 2026 with a sense of foreboding. We may not see “thick darkness” but we may well see a future which seems gloomy – whether that be because of the deep inequalities in our society, the threats posed by the climate crisis, the worry that the world’s wars could escalate out of control, or whatever. I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but I must say that I’m not looking forward to the coming year with any sense of optimism. And yet, and yet .. we not only have to have hope that God’s light will miraculously shine upon dark times and places, we also have to be bearers of that light. In his sermon last Sunday, Pope Leo said that Christians “should cherish the values of the Gospel”, such as healthy affections, sincere dialogue, fidelity and the simple and beautiful concreteness of everyday words and gestures”. If we do that, he said, we will be “a light of hope for the places in which we live; a school of love and an instrument of salvation in God’s hands”. The Stevenson family’s lighthouses saved many mariners and their vessels; Christians can save the world.