May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. "Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm. Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come. Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah. And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD. (Isaiah 60:1-6)

In Christ's name and to his glory, dear friends: We Bible-believing Lutherans understand and hold precious the truth that we are saved by God's grace alone and that we cannot contribute one ounce toward our salvation. Our forgiveness in Christ, our faith (trust, belief) in that forgiveness, our remaining in faith until we are taken safely to heaven - all this is from God. We cannot save ourselves, nor can we save others. I can do nothing to make your sins go away, nor can you do anything to make mine disappear before God. This God alone does for us.

However, God's way of spreading the good news does involve us. This is not to say that God is dependent on us. He does not need us to spread the Gospel, but he does choose to use us. Epiphany has long been a time to consider how God involves us in spreading the Gospel. We have the wonderful words of God from Isaiah this morning in which God calls us, invites us, directs us and even moves us to be busy in spreading the Gospel light to the world. We have as our central thought CHRISTIAN, SHINE! May the Holy Spirit cause us to see that these words are address to each of us today.

God says to us, Christian, Shine, because there is a great need for God's light in the world. Isaiah draws our attention to the darkness with the words, See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples. We might be tempted to challenge those words. The dark ages are past, we might think. We are in an age of technological marvels. We might think this, but we would be fooling ourselves. The darkness of which Isaiah speaks is not an illiteracy or lack of education. It is the thick, black darkness of sin and unbelief. Sin covers the earth. Is there any place that sin has not touched on the earth? We will not mention the literally billions who don't even know the word Jesus let alone what he has done for them. We won't even speak of the countless thousands who know the word Jesus but do not understand the Name of Jesus, thinking that he describes the way to heaven by doing good. Right in our own homes there are the lack of dedication to God that the first three commandments demand and the lack of pure and perfect love that commandments 4-10 demand. Yes darkness covers the earth. And so God calls us with these words to shine, for there certainly is a great need for his light.

You know how our eyes get used to the light around us. God has made our eyes wonderfully to automatically open and close to let in more or less light. We adjust to the light in our room as we read in the late afternoon. But then someone else walks in. They tell us, Ooh it is dark in here. It is? I hadn't noticed. Sometimes we Christians can get to be that way. We don't notice the darkness that is around us because our eyes have adjusted. When we watch TV shows of when we were children, we say, Wow, it's sure different now. With this little call, See, darkness covers the earth, God is saying, You've gotten use to the darkness. I'm reminding you that it is real and terrible so that you see the great need you and the whole world have for my Light. Christian, Shine!

But not only sympathy for others ought to move us to shine. God also says, Christian, Shine! because the saving light has risen for you. Arise, Shine, for your light has come...darkness covers the earth...but the Lord rises on you. Having just visited the manger scene, we can easily bring to mind what Light has shined on us. God's light is Jesus, the Light of the world. He comes to hearts longing for peace and gives them the peace of sins forgiven. He comes to people the imagination of whose hearts are evil all the time and teaches them to say no to ungodliness and sin. He comes to hearts who weep and wail as they travel through this vale of tears and sings in their hearts the distant triumph song - those who sow in tear will reap in heavenly joy. He comes to tell them that that life is not hallway of hell but a journey toward heavenly glory. And friend, we have that Light. So God says, Christian, Shine!

More than just a simple command. These words of God are a commissioning, enabling creative word. By this I mean his words not only tell us what to do, they make it possible to do it, because his almighty word is in that command. When you flip the switch at home, you do not have to walk over to the light bulb and say, Now shine! No, the electricity enlivens the bulb so that it can do what it was made to do. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works it says in Ephesians 2. And the Apostle Peter tells us that God made us his people that we may declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. Christian, Shine! That is why God made you what you are.