Monday, December 18, 2006
John 1:4-5 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness.
THE COLORS OF CHRISTMAS: LIGHT
Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that Christmas occurs three days after the darkest day of the year? It is sometimes difficult to be excited about winter. Cold, dark, wet, and often dangerous roads, these things all combine to make winter, for some people, the worst time of the year. We can get grumpy about shoveling our sidewalks. We can complain about looking out the window at 3:30 and seeing nothing but black. And yet right in the midst of this dreary, dull, depressing time of year sits Christmas. Arguably it is the most cheerful, joyous time of year. It is hard to truly dislike winter with such a warm and festive holiday sitting at its heart.
The festival of Christmas spreads out tendrils of warm glowing joy to what would otherwise be an almost unendurably bleak and forbidding stretch of time. This is very appropriate, since it is the celebration of the coming of warmth and joy into the bleak desolate world of men. Like a furnace in the heart of a house, so is Christmas in the heart of winter, and so is Christ in the heart of a man.
Just when our life looks the bleakest. Just when we don't think it could get any darker out, Christ comes with His light to change mourning into gladness. We may yet have months of gloom ahead, we may have dark hours and cold nights still coming, but once Christmas is in our heart the days only get longer and closer to the Summer of eternity. May all those who live in the shadow of our own darkness continually receive the warmth and light of the celestial rays of that eternal day.
Christ brings the light.
