Rescued from Darkness

 Luke 1:68-79; Colossians 1: 11-20

 

This Sunday was Christ the King Sunday, and our passages reflect upon it. Our Luke passage is the prophecy of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. He tells about a mighty Savior being raised by God. The promise given to their ancestor Abraham is coming through. This prophecy comes at the birth of John the Baptist and his father tells how his child will be called prophet of the most high and will go before the Savior Lord to prepare his way by giving knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. The dawn from on high will break upon them to give light to those who sit in darkness.

This idea of rescuing people from the dark comes out in Colossians 1 where it tells of God rescuing us from the power of darkness, enabling us to share in the inheritance of the saints of light. How? It is by transferring us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption – the forgiveness of sins. Christ has a kingdom therefore he is a King.

This Colossians passage is well chosen for Christ the King Sunday since it highlights the divinity of Christ – the attributes that Christ shares with God in the Trinity. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn. We all know that firstborns are heirs to the throne. All things were created in him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. This being first is brought out again by saying he is the head of the church, the beginning, and the firstborn of the dead. Due to this he has first place in everything. In him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and most important for us, through him God was pleased and able to reconcile all things by Christ making peace – reconciliation through the blood of his cross.

Due to Christ’s work on the cross we are rescued from darkness – Colossians calls it the power of darkness. But as Zechariah prophesied, “the dawn has come.” God’s light has been brought to us from a mighty Savior King with the divinity of God but a peacemaker who through his death on the cross we have been enabled to share in the inheritance of the saints – which is the light.

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