Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel;
for he has come to his people and set them free.
No longer would God rely on the unfaithful stewards and shepherds of the past to look after his flock, for he had promised "I myself will be the Shepherd of my sheep and cause them to lie down in peace" (see Ezekiel 34:16-18). This profundity of the promised presence was also prophesied by Isaiah, who said a child would be born for us, named "be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (see Isaiah 9:6). This was what the angel indicated when said that the promised one would be called Immanuel (see Matthew 1:23), meaning God is with us. God himself, at long last, would truly come. The author would step into his own story, the creator himself appear visibly within his creation. This is indeed exactly how the people experienced the presence of Jesus.
Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” (see Luke 7:16).
It was for this reason that Jesus himself would forever be the one mediator between God and man (see First Timothy 2:5), he who was himself both God and man. It was for this reason too that only Jesus could truly reveal the Father to us, for he and he alone had seen the Father, had dwelled with him together for all eternity (see John 6:46). We had heretofore been without someone who could both stand before the Father and yet truly take our part. Moses stood in the breach for his people (see Psalm 106:23) but even he could not stand directly before the Father. As a consequence, sin was never more than partially ameliorated, and the heart of the Father for his people remained obscure, fearful, and intimidating.
He has raised up for us a mighty Savior,
born of the house of his servant David.
There had been many great heroes in the history of salvation, but none of them were able to address the fundamental need of every human being for salvation. Our truest enemies were not flesh and blood, but principalities and powers (see Ephesians 6:12). Our deepest need was for salvation by the forgiveness of our sins. Only this salvation could clear the way to that which was always meant to be our destiny, our purpose, the hidden desire in the deepest parts of ours hearts: to know and to be known by God.
free to worship him without fear,
holy and righteous in his sight
all the days of our life.
This alone would be true freedom. Only on this basis could we know the deepest kind of joy. It was this for which David longed when he desired to build a dwelling place for God. But in spite of the rightness of that intention the dwelling place of God among men was something God himself would have to build, which he indeed did build in the very incarnation of Jesus himself.
The LORD also reveals to you
that he will establish a house for you.
What we desperately needed, what we could never accomplish for ourselves, the Lord himself intervened to accomplish for us. After long years during which it seemed that the darkness dominated and the light was little more than a flicker the true dawn finally began to rise at that first Christmas. It was a sun that would never set.
And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts (see Second Peter 1:19).
Let us keep our eyes fixed on this light, the only one that can never be truly overcome by the darkness, until, within that light, all we see is light.
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