Isaiah 9:2–7
The words of the prophets are not just words of the past predicting the Messiah, they are words about the present need for a savior. The church has often drifted into this position of not adequately articulating why anyone would need Jesus. A lot of people are fine and dandy now. Maybe we have a supernatural end after we day. Maybe we can think about our loved ones and seeing them again.
The darkness of which the prophet Isaiah spoke was not the darkness of death at the end of a long life but the darkness found in the brokenness of this world. The people who walk in darkness are here and now people who are hurting in this world; people who society marginalizes and dismisses.
Abolition is one response to the claim of Isaiah 9 that God “will establish justice and righteousness from this time onward and forevermore.” The word justice has been entirely appropriated and hollowed out by the criminal justice system, but righteousness has not. In Greek, they are the same word.
If the child is to be born who brings light in the darkness, then we need follow that child in the authority and righteousness even now. Not just with tasks that are easy, but with tasks that are hard.
The yoke of their burden will be broken. May we work to break those yokes this today. May the Incarnation remind us that God’s light is not just for the future, but for now. May we work towards that future of righteousness in all things, especially in ways of justice, now.
Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.