Christmas light

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 (Isaiah 9:2).

Nobody knows precisely when Jesus was born. Luke tells us who the rulers were in Palestine and Rome at that time, so we know that our Lord was born in Bethlehem within a couple of years either side of 4 BC. But the Bible does not tell us the day or even the month that Jesus was born. It was over three hundred years after our Lord ascended back into heaven before Christians were known to be celebrating the anniversary of His birth among us. We have no knowledge of why December 25th was selected as the date for Christmas.

But although we don’t know the month or day that Jesus was born, celebrating His coming to us in late December is certainly appropriate. We are just passing the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere of the earth. For the past six months, the days have been gradually getting shorter and the nights longer; for the next six months, the hours of darkness will give way to ever increasing amounts of daylight.

Mankind has always understood the importance of light. Crops won’t grow without light. Without light, it is almost impossible to get work done. Studies have shown that when deprived of light, people are prone to becoming irritable and depressed. It is no coincidence that black, the color of darkness, is often associated with evil and the grief that evil brings about.

If there is any month of the year that is dark, it is December. But December is also the month where things turn around—where the encroaching night begins to be pushed back by the advancing light of day. What an appropriate time, then, to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In John chapter 8 Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Because Jesus is the light of the world, John begins his account of Jesus’ life with these words: In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. December is the month of darkness beginning to give way to light—there is no better time to celebrate God sending us His Son to bring light into our dark world.

And the world is dark, my friend. Not just dark because the nights are long, but because of people. Everywhere in the world, people live in moral darkness. This Christmas, many people are spending more money on buying presents than they are spending time with their loved ones. The news is already flooded with campaign lies and half-truths, and this will only get worse in the months ahead. Over the next three months, many people will once again cheat on their Income Tax returns. Every month, young men and women from our country are dying because they are trying to bring peace to people who would rather kill. All across our country, families are collapsing into chaos because parents have stopped demanding respect and hard work from their children. More and more people stay away from church, because going to church would force them to reevaluate their sinful behavior. You can even hear people who claim to be Christian who will say "Oh God!" as if our Father’s holy name is nothing more than a way to express being surprised. The world is a dark place, because most people do not put God first in their lives.

Our Lord Jesus is the light of the world—but what does that mean, exactly? How is life in the light of Christ different from life in the darkness of sin? A good place to start is to talk about love. John tells us quite simply, God is love (1 John 4:16). God is the source of all true love. Now it is obvious that unbelievers know love too; but without the light of Christ to reveal things as they truly are, most people are fooled into accepting selfish behavior as expressions of true love. Picture it this way: most bars keep the lights down low. This is supposed to create an intimate atmosphere for couples who are getting to know each other, but in truth, dim lighting makes it hard to see the flaws in another person. Everyone looks good in the dark. It is the pure light of day that reveals wrinkles, gray hair, and a beer belly.

In the same way, without the light of Christ, love tainted by sin can look like the real thing to a person living in darkness. Without Christ’s light, many women accept being brutalized as part of a normal relationship. In the darkness, it can appear acceptable to have sexual union with many different people, in or out of marriage. It can seem normal to maintain friendships only so long as you are getting some advantage from the relationship. It can seem appropriate to tell lies in order to keep a relationship healthy. It can seem wise to let people do whatever they want, so long as it makes them happy.

Living in the light of Jesus allows believers to see that love is something completely different. Jesus defines true love when He says God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son (John 3:16). True love requires action; true love demands personal sacrifice. God’s love for us was such that He could not stand by and do nothing while our darkened understanding of love led us to use and abuse each other; because He loved us, God had to take action to stop the constant infliction of hurts. So He made a sacrifice—God sent His only Son, the perfect Son who pleased Him greatly, and sent Him to live in a sin-darkened world, a world that resisted His message of true love because darkness cannot understand light. Indeed, darkness fears light, because light banishes darkness. At night, when you open your door, do you let darkness into your house? Of course not—you let light out to push back the darkness. This is why children of darkness fear the light of Christ. And because those who loved darkness feared the light, they resisted Him at every opportunity, eventually sending Him to a cross to die.

This is the sacrifice that God the Father made, because He loved us. When a Christian loves, then, it is with the understanding that love is giving, not taking. The Christian knows that true love is about keeping promises, telling the truth, giving comfort, and making yourself available when you are needed. The Christian knows that loving others means giving them what they need, not necessarily what they want. The Christian knows that when it is pure, love does no harm to its neighbor (Romans 13:10).

Darkness does not understand how relationships are maintained. Far too many people are always looking out for "number one"; their focus is on themselves instead of on the relationship. When a friend or family member hurts them, their first response is to get even somehow; perhaps they try to return the pain they feel by yelling at the offender or by saying something emotionally hurtful. Some respond with violence, either by striking the person who caused the hurt, or by destroying some of their personal property when they are not around. Others hold in their anger at being hurt and emotionally withdraw for hours, days, weeks or even longer; they may repay their hurt by refusing to discuss anything of emotional importance with the offender until they feel that he or she has suffered enough. The way of darkened relationships is to keep a mental ledger book and make sure that every mistake is punished. The way of darkened relationships is to never trust but always be on your guard, living in emotional isolation.

The light of Christ shows that relationships cannot survive if they are built on judgment. If our relationship with God can only survive if He makes sure that we suffer for our every mistake, then eternity in hell is all we have to look forward to. We anger God every day with our immature temper tantrums, our casual lies, our delight in passing on gossip about others as if we are better than them. We anger God when we foolishly fritter away the money and skills and time that He has given us for the purpose of showing His love for others. If relationships are built on a pattern of retribution for every hurt, then we can expect no relationship from God, because Psalm 130 rightly says: If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?

Jesus came to earth to spare us from the judgment of God. Paul writes, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). God the Father diverted His punishment of our sins to Jesus, who suffered and died in our place. Jesus accepted our punishment so that we could be forgiven; John writes we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:1-2). And the most remarkable part of Jesus’ salvation is that it is completely free—we need do nothing but believe in Him! We don’t have to do a certain number of good works every day. We do not have to make restitution for every thing that we do wrong. Jesus’ sacrifice has cancelled all our obligations to make settlement for our sins—Romans chapter three says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Whatever good deeds that we do are purely acts of grateful thanks for God’s great mercy to us through Jesus; they are in no way repayment for our wrongs.

Christians living by the light of Christ understand that the only way relationships can survive for the long haul is through forgiveness. Without forgiveness, we would have no relationship with God; without forgiveness, no human relationship can endure. Forgiveness ends fights and feuds. Forgiveness makes divorce unnecessary. Forgiveness brings about deeper bonds of commitment, and improves the quality of intimacy between good friends. Forgiveness empties out the bile of lingering resentment that would otherwise slowly destroy a person from the inside.

Finally, darkness does not understand death. To people who don’t have the light of Christ, the darkness of death seems not so very different from the darkness of human life. For such people, death can appear to be a friend who brings release from suffering. When death is a friend, suicide seems like a good way to escape the problems of life. When death is a friend, a woman can rationalize aborting her baby by saying that she is sparing it from an unhappy life in a miserable world. When the darkness of death is a friend, life stops being a precious gift to be protected and nurtured at all costs.

The light of Christ shows death to be the evil thing that it truly is. When God created mankind, we were made immortal—it was never God’s plan that people should die. Death came as the consequence of sin; Paul writes the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Jesus had to die Himself in order to break death’s eternal claim on us; in Hebrews 2:9 we read we see Jesus…now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. The result is freedom from death for us; Paul says our Savior, Christ Jesus…has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10). Jesus Himself said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies (John 11:25). Jesus’ promise to His faithful followers is that death is no more permanent for us than it was for Him; He said Because I live, you also will live (John 14:19). Jesus rose from the dead on Easter to complete the work that He began on Christmas—the defeat of sin, and the curse of death that sin brings.

When we live by the light of Christ, we see that life is a precious gift from God—so valuable that He allowed His Son Jesus to be put to death so that each human life could be preserved. The light of Christ shows us that deliberately ending God’s gift of life is unthinkable—all life is to be nurtured, protected, and given the best possible care. Death is the enemy, an enemy that we need not fear because Jesus has defeated it permanently.

Living in the light is infinitely superior to living in darkness; this is the great gift of God to us on Christmas. May the light of Christ grow brighter in your life and give you new life, just as the now lengthening days will result in the renewed life of spring.