Light

I love Christmas lights.  Lights are everywhere, up and down main streets now cascading Christmas decorations, in Mall displays, to private homes with strings of lights hanging from the eaves.  Every color reminds me of the Lord; white for illumination, green for new life, yellow for gold – one of the gifts of the magi and meant for the King of kings, red for the blood Jesus shed for our sins, blue for the heavenly canopy under which we live.

God spoke light into existence.  In fact, it is the first time He speaks.  “Let there be light” – and there was light!  Jesus is called “the Word”.  Jesus is called “the light of the world”.  God is light and there is no darkness in Him.  Not in heaven where He and those who believe in His Son will live. 

In the beginning of time, the middle and in the end – there is light.

Not the false light we “create” to decorate for Christmas, but THE Light— Light that quickens the soul, that holds creative power, that opens the eyes of the (spiritually) blind.  We were dead in our sins and now are alive in Him through faith.  Jesus, the Light-and-Life Giver.

How can we take in the magnitude of this historic event at such a time as this in our country when man makes Christmas into a commercial endeavor and silly stories and an it’s-all-about-what-I-I-I-want-for-Christmas? 

It can be done.

Step back quietly.  Step out purposefully.  Turn out the lights.  Sit in a dark room and light a single candle.  One small flame obliterates the darkness.  Remember.  Jesus.

Jesus strikes the match and lights us through the Holy Spirit.  Darkness flees.  We can be fully free through faith.  We look into the manger in wonder.  God incarnate, vulnerable.  We look at Jesus’ life.  God, a boy in the Temple.  God walking the dusty roads and teaching by Word and example and signs and wonders.  God nailed to a cross.  God in the tomb.  God rising, conquering death.  Jesus ascending.

A thousand promises were kept when Jesus was born.  He made one great promise before He left the earthly plain.  He will return. 

Light the candle.  Remember.  Jesus lives!