“Peace has in it confidence in the Lord: that He directs all things, provides all things, and that He leads to a good end.” - Arcana Caelestia §8455
Kempton New Church

December
7

“Thy Light Has Come!”

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; they who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, on them has the light given brightness. (Isaiah 9:2) Arise, be thou enlightened; for thy light comes, and the glory of Jehovah has risen upon thee. For, behold! The darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness the peoples°; but upon thee shall Jehovah rise°, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. (Isaiah 60:1–3)

This refers to the Lord’s coming. “Light” here means the divine truth emanating from the Lord, and “His glory” and “the brightness of His rising” mean everything visible in that light which has regard to the Lord, to faith in Him, and to love for Him. (Arcana Cœlestia 10574) The Lord who is Light itself, flows into every man; and in everyone in whom there are truths from the Word, He causes truths to shine and thus to become truths of faith. (True Christian Religion 349)

[If a wise man beheld a picture of God as] one Divine Person with rays of heavenly light about His Head and with the inscription over it, This is our God, at once Creator, Redeemer, and Regenerator, and therefore the Savior. Would not that wise man kiss this picture, carry it home in his bosom, and by the sight of it gladden his own mind, and the minds of his wife and his children and servants? (True Christian Religion 296)

previous next