Light

A lot of things have been happening recently. The weather has definitely changed to winter, the days are shorter and colder, and we finally got snow at the beginning of the week.  I had my last kid’s Day event of the season last week, and am taking my English Conversation group on a small field trip to see the city and Christmas lights tonight. Christmas lights have been up for a while and Christmas day is in one week. One theme that seems to keep coming to me through all of this is light.

Here in December, the sun starts setting around 3:30pm and it is dark by 4pm. It can be somewhat depressing, especially for me when I come from a place where is it sunny almost all the time. And with the snow here, it is very cloudy and mostly overcast. It has been 5 days since I last saw blue skies. So when the sun shines here, I have learned to enjoy it, even though those days are colder than sunny days. (Go figure..) So I have learned not to take the sun for granted, and it makes me smile when I see the sun.

Christmas lights go up early around here. The malls and a lot of stores already had their lights and decorations up by the end of October. One nice thing about the lights here is that they stay up for a long time. A lot of stores have a public display of lights that face the main street, and they keep it up for most of the winter. It certainly brings a little more cheer and light to the short days and long evenings.

With the shorter days and lack of sunshine, depression can be a common thing around here. Even I can sometimes feel depressed or lazy because of the lack of sunshine. But I was again reminded of light this week. What came to my mind was a song:

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.”
(based on Psalm 119:105)

How often do we forget that? Light is used so often as a word to describe God’s ways, His word, and even God himself. For the past Kid’s Days events, we have been going through different stories in Judges. Last week we discussed Ruth, and ended up concentrating on the light in that story. We had talked about how Ruth’s faith in God had been a light of hope to her, and how later her son became a light for her family. That son became the grandfather of King David, who was a light for Israel in their dark days. And David became an ancestor of Jesus who was the true light that God sent. How amazing is that! That tiny light of hope for Israel, during their dark days of the judges, grew and became the greatest light that would be a light for all mankind.

“The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.”
(Isaiah 9:2)

Jesus is that light. I love how God used light to proclaim the birth of his Son. When the shepherds in the fields were told of Jesus’ birth, “the glory of the Lord shone around them.” (Luke 2:9) God’s glory “shone,” it shined on them. What else shines besides light? Not a lot of things shine without light of some sort, be it natural or man-made. I think that God’s glory had to be one of the brightest lights that shone on the shepherds that night. God again used light when he created a star to guide the wise men to Bethlehem. (Matthew 2:1-12) Stars are already very bright. They are millions of miles away and yet we can still see their light in the evening. This star had to be big and brighter than all the others for these men to take notice of it. God had something special to share with the world, and they knew it because of that star.

We take stars for granted today, just like we do our sun (which is a star!). We consider stars to be a romantic thing, we make wishes on stars, we have picnics under the stars, and we predict our futures by the stars. But what are stars? They are technically great balls of gas, but they are a source of light. Where does that light come from? From God!

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness, he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”
(Genesis 1:3-5)

The first thing God created was light! God showed himself to Moses and Israel as forms of light; to Moses as a burning bush (Ex 3:2), and to Israel as a pillar of fire to lead their way (Ex 13:21-22). When the Son of God was born, light was used to proclaim his birth (Matt 2:1-12, Luke 2:9). Jesus called himself a light: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) When Jesus was transfigured, “his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” (Matt 17:2) God is light. There is no question about that.

I just hope that brings you comfort and joy this Christmas season. May we always be thankful for the light and not take it for granted. May it remind us that God is with us and that He has overcome the world.

“For the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.”
(John 1:5)

Merry Christmas!!!