Light In The Darkness

December and January – the darkest months of the year in the UK. But December has something that January doesn't have – extra lights!

Light In The Darkness

I used to be rather a Scrooge when it came to Christmas decorations and lights outside houses but the older I have become, the more I have enjoyed towns and houses lighting up over the Advent period. I've not quite got to the point of extra lights on the outside of my house, but maybe one day!

When things are at their darkest, light is needed. Perhaps it is no coincidence that a major feature of a festival held at the darkest time of year is light? Symbolic so often of hope, perhaps the reason so many like the streets lit up in the darkest month is that sense of looking forward to a time of celebration – the remembrance of a unique life given into a dark world. If one history of Christmas lights is to be believed (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/89548/what-origin-christmas-tree), one of the first recorded instances of lights on a Christmas tree was in the 16th century when Martin Luther tried to describe to his family the beauty of the stars through the forest trees. Having failed to do so to his satisfaction, he went out, cut down a fir tree, and proceeded to put lighted candles on it. Perhaps, then, the tradition of lights at Christmas may just have been inspired by the lights that the Creator Himself placed in the sky to mark "signs and seasons . . . days and years" (Genesis 1:14).

The first “Christmas” was marked by light coming into a scene of darkness. When He was an adult, Christ said "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). The famous carol, O little town of Bethlehem, says:

"Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light."

Being described as the "everlasting Light" reminds us that this baby was rightly called "Immanuel" which means "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:4) is a straightforward statement of the nature of God and the One laid in Bethlehem's manger is no less than God "manifested in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:14). The carol goes on to say:

"The hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight."

Hope – how humanity needs it! Sin, causing separation from God, from others, and even from self (in the sense of truly understanding who we are), has caused suffering beyond measure in this world. Death is a dark shadow cast across all and is perhaps the thing above all others that emphasizes the darkness this world is in. Spiritually, sin cuts us off from the God who is light and so we dwell in spiritual darkness, a condition that will become eternal if we are not forgiven by God. "Outer darkness" (Matthew 25:30) is one of the sobering descriptions that Jesus used concerning hell.

Into this dark scene, 7-800 years before the birth of the Lord Jesus, the prophet Isaiah infuses some hope, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined" (Isaiah 9:2). I would like to suggest that, through the advent of "the Light of the world", at least three things have come that will give hope: life, knowledge, and guidance.

Life – if anything is to dispel the darkness of death, it is life. The disciple John wrote this about the Lord Jesus, "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). Just as light is essential to life on this planet, so the Light of the world is essential. He said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). Whether it is fullness of life while living on earth, eternal life and a relationship with God (John 14:6), or resurrection life (1 Corinthians 15:20), the Light of the world is essential to it.

Knowledge – our sin means we do not, and cannot, know and understand God. Writing about such a condition, the Apostle Paul uses the language of darkness to describe this state: "having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart" (Ephesians 4:18). The Light of the world is therefore just what we need! Writing to Christians about their conversion experience, Paul says, "it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). The way God has revealed Himself to man is through Jesus Christ. As Jesus Himself said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). John Wesley's great carol, Hark! the herald angels sing, sums the truth up well:

"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity, 
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel."

Guidance – while the Christmas lights that we see may simply be there as a display of celebration, light is so often linked with showing the way, or being able to see the way. The “Christmas story” itself has the star guiding the wise men to where the King of the Jews was! The “Light of the world” makes this promise: "He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life" (John 8:12) and, "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness" (John 12:46). The Lord Jesus promises that those who place their trust in Him will know a direction and clarity through life that was never there before.

The Bible states clearly that our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ determines where we will spend eternity: "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:17). Sadly, "the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). This world, and each individual in it, needs a source of hope and, as the many millions of lights around the country shine through December bringing light through a dark month, may we remember, consider, and then follow that One whose birth we celebrate this month: Jesus, the Light of the world.