Turning on the light . . .

When I was very young I slept in a bedroom with stained pine tongue and groove paneling. As I lie in bed at night, trying to go to sleep, the room was almost dark. In the darkness the pine paneling came alive, the lines of the grain of the finished planks creating images of wolves and monsters that seemed to move, straining to jump out of the wall that contained them, and eat me up. No one could go to sleep with all that going on all around him. Having wild animals and monsters lurking in your room presented a difficult dilemma. As we all know, the bed offered some degree of protection against such evil entities, though not certain. So, I lie in bed, staying still for as long as I could take it. At some point I reached the tipping point, sure that the attack of the wood grain wild things was imminent, and sprang from the bed and flipped on the light.

In the light there were no wild things, no wolves or monsters. Just pine paneling.

That is what light does. It allows us to see the truth.

Christmas is about light. That's what John said in Chapter 1 of his gospel:

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Light, as we know it in our physical world, is a form of energy. It has power.

Darkness, on the other hand, is simply the absence of light, the absence of that illuminating energy.

Darkness has no power, other than that which we give it through our fear of things we cannot see.

If you attend a candlelight service this Christmas Eve, let me make a suggestion. As the room is still dark except for the light of the Christ candle, get into a position where you can turn and look at the crowd, preferably at their faces. In the beginning, before the flame is passed from the Christ candle, the room will be full of shadowy figures and faces. Then, as the light is passed from person to person, from candle to candle, the light is not diminished as it is shared. It is multiplied. The room will begin to glow. The shadowy darkness will retreat in the face of the warm, lovely, loving light.

Jesus was born into this world as a tiny baby, a single white-hot pinpoint of undefinable light. But the light did not stay in the stable. It was passed from heart to heart, from generation to generation.

Even to this generation.

In the darkness that remains in this world it is tempting to lie still, trembling with fear, hoping that the wild things and monsters that lurk in the shadows will not notice us.

But if this world is dark, we are the ones at fault. We have been given the gift we need.

We must simply reach for the Light.

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