My text, in the part on which I have just been speaking, links
itself with ancient Messianic prophecy, and this expression, 'the
dayspring from on high.' also links itself with other prophecies of
the same sort. Almost the last word of prophecy before the four
centuries of silence which Mary and Zacharias broke, was, 'Unto you
that fear His name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing
in His beams.' There can be little doubt, I think, that the allusion
of my text is to these all but the last words of the prophet
Malachi. For that final chapter of the Old Testament colours the
song both of Mary and of Zacharias. And it is to be observed that
the Greek translation of the Hebrew uses the same verb, of which the
cognate noun is here employed, for the rising of the Sun of
Righteousness. 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.' And
my text is the anticipation, perhaps from lips that did not fully
understand the whole significance of the prophecy which they spoke,
of these later declarations. I have said that the darkness is the
emblem of three baleful things, of the converse of which light is
the symbol. 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 no unemotional
abstraction, but 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 hath seen Me hath
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 borne 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.'
Brother, it is possible to grope at noontide as in the dark, and in
all the blaze of Christ's revelation still to be left in the
Cimmerian folds of midnight gloom. You can shut your eyes to the
sunshine; have you opened your hearts to its coming?
I cannot dwell (your time will not allow of it) upon the other
points connected with this description of the day spring, except
just to point out in passing the singular force and depth of the
words--which I suppose are more forcible and deep than he who spoke
them understood at the time that visitation was described. 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, 'hath had
elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar.' For He that rises upon
us as the Light of life, hath descended from the heavens, and was,
before He appeared amongst men.
And His coming is a divine visitation. The word here 'hath
_visited_ us' (or 'shall visit us,' as the Revised Version
varies it), is chiefly employed in the Old Testament to describe the
divine acts of self-revelation, and these, mostly redemptive acts.
Zacharias employs it in that sense in the earlier portion of the
song, where he says that 'God hath visited and redeemed His people.'
And so from the use of this word we gather these two thoughts--God
comes to us when Christ comes to us, and His coming is wondrous,
blessed nearness, and nearness to each of us. 'What is man that Thou
shouldst be mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou shouldst
visit him?' said the old Psalmist. We say 'What is man that the
Dayspring from on high should come down upon earth, and round His
immortal beams, should, as it were, cast the veil and obscuration of
a human form; and so walk amongst us, the embodied Light and the
Incarnate God?' 'The dayspring from on high hath visited us.'