A Light for People Who Walk in the Dark

Isaiah had told God, "Here I am. Send me."
So God sent him out past the washerwomen's field,
where King Ahaz was checking the city's water pipe.

(A king with an army coming checks his water first.
Ahaz had two armies coming.)

The kings of Aram and Israel
had joined together and were marching south.
Ahaz and all his people shook
like trees in a hard wind.

Isaiah brought his son, Shear-jashub.
(The name means "A few will come back,"
which is a lot of name to carry around the house.)

"Stay calm," Isaiah said.
"Don't be afraid of those two kings.
They are two stubs of firewood, nearly burned out:
all smoke, not much fire.
Their plan will not happen.
Ask the LORD for a sign, any sign you like,
down as deep as the grave or up as high as the sky."

But Ahaz already had a plan.
He meant to pay the king of Assyria to fight for him.
So Ahaz put on his holiest face.
"Oh, I won't ask," he said.
"I won't put the LORD to the test."
(It sounded very holy.
What it meant was, No thank you, God.)

"Listen, family of David!" Isaiah cried.
"Is it not enough to wear people out?
Must you wear out my God too?
Then the Lord himself will choose the sign.
The virgin will have a baby boy,
and she will call him Immanuel."

A virgin is a young woman who has never been with a man the way a wife is with her husband.
Immanuel means God with us.

Ahaz paid his silver anyway,
and Assyria came like a flooding river.
It swept over Aram and Israel,
and the northern lands of Zebulun and Naphtali,
by the Lake of Galilee, went dark first.
Many people were killed or dragged from their homes.

Into that dark, God gave Isaiah a song:

"The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light.
On the land where death's shadow lies,
the morning has come up bright.
Lord, you have broken the heavy bar off their shoulders,
the way you beat Midian in Gideon's day.

"For a child is born to us,
a son is given to us,
and the ruling will rest on his shoulders.
He will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
He will sit on David's throne,
and his kingdom and his peace
will keep growing and never end.
The LORD of heaven's armies has set his heart on it,
and he will do it."

(Four names for one baby.
Most babies make do with one.)

Ahaz never asked for his sign.
His son was king after him, and then his grandson,
and nobody ever called one of them Mighty God.
Galilee stayed dim.

Seven hundred years went by.
People kept saying Isaiah's song over in the dark,
and they watched David's family for a son.

Then an angel came to Joseph, a man from David's family.
"Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife," the angel said.
"The baby inside her is from the Holy Spirit."
So the virgin Mary had a baby boy,
just as the old words said: God with us.
The boy grew up and made his home by the Lake of Galilee,
in the old land of Zebulun and Naphtali.
The people who had walked so long in the dark
looked up and saw a great light.

His name was Jesus,
and he was God, with them.