Christmas Advent Devotional Part I ~"God is compassion, and compassion is God."

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;

​​For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,

​​To give knowledge of salvation to His people

​​By the remission of their sins,

 ​​Through the tender mercy of our God,

​​With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;

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

​​To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Luke 1:76-79

“But for you who revere My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.”

Malachi 4:2

         As the dawn is ushered in by the notes of birds, so the rising of the Sun of Righteousness was heralded by song. Mary and Zacharias brought their praises and welcome to the unborn Christ, the angels hovered with heavenly music over His cradle, and Simeon took the child in his arms and blessed Him. The human members of this choir may be regarded as the last of the psalmists and prophets, and the first of Christian singers. The song of Zacharias, from which this text is taken, is steeped in Old Testament allusions, and redolent of the ancient spirit, but it transcends that. For that final chapter of the Old Testament colors the song both of Mary and of Zacharias. The picturesque old English word, ‘dayspring’ means neither more nor less than sunrising. And it is here used practically as a name for Jesus Christ, who is Himself the Sun, represented as rising over a darkened earth, and yet, with a singular neglect of the propriety of the metaphor, as descending from on high, not to shine on us from the sky, but to ‘visit us’ on earth.

         Jesus Christ Himself, over and over again, said by implication, and more than once by direct claim, ‘I am the Light of the world.’ As the darkness speaks to us of ignorance, so Christ, as the Sun illumines us with the light of ‘the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’ For doubt we have blessed certainty, for a far-off God we have the knowledge of God close at hand. For an impassive will or a stony-eyed fate we have the knowledge (and not only the wistful yearning after the knowledge) of a loving heart, warm and throbbing. Our God is a living Person who can love, who can pity, and we are speaking more than poetry when we say, God is compassion, and compassion is God. This we know because ‘he that has seen Me has seen the Father.’ And the solid certainty of a loving God, tender, pitying, mighty to help, quick to hear, ready to forgive, waiting to bless, is born into our hearts, and comes there, sweet as the sunshine, when we turn ourselves to the light of Christ.

         In like manner the darkness, born of our own sin, which wraps our hearts, and shuts out so much that is fair and sweet and strong, will pass away if we turn ourselves to Him.  His light pouring into our souls will hurt the eye at first, but it will hurt to cure. The darkness of sin and alienation will pass, and the true light will shine.

         The darkness of sorrow—well! it will not cease, but He will ‘smooth the raven down of darkness till it smiles,’ and He will bring into our griefs such a spirit of quiet submission as that they shall change into a solemn scorn of ills, and be almost like gladnesses. Peace, which is better than exuberant delight, will come to quiet the sorrow of the soul that trusts in Jesus Christ. The day which is knowledge, purity, gladsomeness, the cheerful day will be ours if we hold by Him. We ‘are all the children of the light and of the day’; we ‘are not of the night nor of darkness.’’

         The Dayspring is ‘from on high.’ This Sun has come down on to the earth. It has not risen on a far-off horizon, but it has come down and visited us, and walks among us. This sun, our life-star, ‘has had elsewhere its setting and comes from afar.’ For He that rises upon us as the light of life, has descended from the heavens, and was before He appeared amongst men.
        There is only one way of peace, and that is to follow His beams and to be directed by His preceding us. Then we shall realize the most indispensable of all the conditions of peace ~Christ brings you and me the reconciliation which puts us at peace with God, which is the foundation of all other tranquillity. And He will guide docile feet into the way of peace in yet another fashion ~in that the cleaving to Him, the holding by His skirts or by His hand, and the treading in His footsteps, is the only way by which the heart can receive the solid satisfaction in which it rests, and the conscience can cease from accusing and stinging. The way of wisdom is a path of pleasantness and a way of peace. Only they who walk in Christ's footsteps have quiet hearts and are at amity with God, in concord with themselves, friends of mankind, and at peace with circumstances....for the man who puts his hand into Christ's hand, and says, 'Order my footsteps in Your word.' 
       Friend, put your hand out from the darkness and clasp His, and 'the darkness shall be light about thee'; and He will fulfill His own promise when He said, 'I am the Light of the world. He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life.'

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

St. Luke