On Faith and Values: The coming of the light
The photo above was taken by my friend Ben, an ace photographer and graphic designer, while in Bangladesh several years ago. I love it because it’s one of the coolest illustrations I’ve ever seen of a wonderful sentence in the first chapter of the gospel written by John, one of the first disciples of Jesus: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Or, as another Bible translation puts it, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
That light, to me, is the very essence of Christmas, and what I’d like my focus to be in this season.
There has always been an inextricable link between light and the birth of Jesus. Foretelling the events of Christmas centuries before they happened, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
Two things I believe to be true: One, we live in a world that is frequently a very dark place, and two, Jesus is the bringer of light. “Look what was happening at the time of the birth of Jesus—violence, injustice, abuse of power, homelessness, refugees fleeing oppression, families ripped apart,” says the late pastor and author Timothy Keller. “Sounds exactly like today.”
Sure does. Into that (and our) darkness, says Keller, comes light, and there are some things light can’t help but do. It can give life, and it can reveal truth and beauty. Light also has an almost irresistible appeal to people “walking in darkness.”
I used to be a major Scrooge about the time leading up to Christmas and how the retail mania around the coming of Santa would elbow the birth of Jesus aside every year, starting earlier and earlier. I’d point to the over-the-top tacky light displays around RVA and elsewhere as glowing symbols of our misguidedness. As I consider the birth of the one who would grow up and call himself “the light of the world,” I’ve softened on this. I don’t think it’s any accident that we string lights and set off our most powerful glow during the darkest time of the year, welcoming the coming of the brightest light.
And the darkness can do nothing but underscore how those lights shine.
Everything about the story of the baby born in the manger points to light. The shepherds out in the fields, first to hear the news, were at first overcome by a blinding light from heaven. The visitors from the East followed a shining star that led them to Jesus. When Joseph and Mary, the parents of Jesus, took their son as an infant to the temple to follow Jewish law, they encountered an elderly and revered man, Simeon, who held the baby boy in his arms and mysteriously declared the baby boy “a light to reveal God to the nations.”
John, the disciple of Jesus, also wrote this: “God is light; In him there is no darkness at all.” I’d really like to be able to let the arrival of that light illuminate my Christmas this year. A merry—and bright—one to us all.
