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Day 6: Sun of Righteousness

I’ve always found it worthy of note that God’s Son arrived on the earth without much of a splash. No first-century version of a media blitz. No big publicity campaign. The choir of angels was, of course, a spectacular touch, yet God confined its audience to only a handful of shepherds. To almost everyone else, Jesus slipped into the world unannounced.

No fanfare. No light show. Simply a dawning. “Dayspring”:

O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

I believe we should think of Christmas like that—like a sunrise. Yes, the last vestiges of the night remain visible, even seeming to dominate the opposite horizon, yet they’re clearly in the process of fading, of being pushed aside, their “dark shadows put to flight.”

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, employed this same word picture in his reverie concerning the son God had promised him and his wife in their old age. John, he said, would be tasked with proclaiming to his generation that “the Dayspring from on high has visited us” (Luke 1:78 NKJV), that the seemingly indelible stain of darkness that colored the world would soon be exposed as limited, vulnerable, impermanent.

Breakable. By the Daybreak.

The Dayspring’s visitation, Zechariah said, is meant to

give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the way of peace. (v. 79 NKJV)

And His coming, the ancient carol reminds us, is cause for cheer. We, for whom the darkness is dissipating, have cause, above all others, to be cheerful. Now that the “sun of righteousness” has arisen before us “with healing in its wings,” we’re even rousingly invited to “go out leaping like calves from the stall” (Mal. 4:2).

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” We hear in the carol’s darker keys the pangs of desperation. And yet, because our God has responded to this cry with the sunrise promise of His advent, we live today as “children of light” (Eph. 5:8). And even if our life’s journey takes us through periods of darkness, we can still walk forward into

the light of dawn,
which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

(Prov. 4:18)

For though Christmas is like a sunrise, it does not presage a coming sunset. This earthbound life we live is leading us to a heavenly high noon. And how can we not be cheerful as we contemplate the joy of that day?

Prayer

How grateful I am, Father, that the cheer You provide is neither superficial nor unsustainable. You have placed the hopefulness of a new morning inside us now that Your Son has dawned in our hearts and promised an end to our darkness. Make me a beacon of this light to others so that no place I go is devoid of Your brightness.

Keep Reading

Psalm 118:23–24

“This is the day that the Lord has made.” (v. 24)

Isaiah 60:1–3

“Arise, shine, for your light has come.” (v. 1)

Ephesians 5:8–10

“Walk as children of light.” (v. 8)

Consider

Think of situations you may encounter this Christmas season where your cheerful spirit could be the most noticeable, the most indicative of Christ’s light in your life.

Continue reading advent devotionals like this with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth's 31-day advent devotional, Born a Child Yet a King.