Spirituality

Light of the World

There are lights everywhere. Lights to remind us, point us to the Light of the World.

December

It’s December and Christmas-time, and at home, we have lights – on the Christmas trees, on the mantle, and in the bay window. And fairy lights glitter, winking, around the sliding glass doors in the kitchen. The streets are lit too, homes and shrubbery decked with twinkling colours: green, red, yellow, blue, purple and white. On the grey and cheerless days, the bright colours bring a lifting of spirit – they shimmer with a warm radiance on bitter arctic nights.

Light in darkness

Light shining in the darkness.

The Light of the world comes.

He comes with passion, intense longing, and with profound tenderness. He comes wooing, a Lover longing for the one He loves. He calls us to Himself. He says we are His beloved;“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession…{He is} the one who call{s} you out of darkness into His marvellous light.” (1 Pet. 2:9)

He comes to puncture the deep darkness.

Light of the World

The Light of the world offers Himself – Hope, Incarnate.

“For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Cor.4:6)

It is a mystery I do not wholly comprehend, the depths of which I cannot fully fathom.

This glorious gift;

God sent His Son, Jesus.

He was born in a manger, in disgrace – unwanted and shamed – with no place, no room.

But, angelic hosts trumpeted His birth, spilling with brilliance in grandeur like the Aurora Borealis across the night sky- magnificence, proclaiming, declaring:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favour rests!” (Luke 2:14)

Darkness into light

In the loss that haunts us and the death that breaks us; and amid thick darkness and rolling fog when we cannot find the way: this promise comes: –
“I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on unfamiliar paths. I will turn darkness into light before them and rough places into level ground. These things I will do for them, and I will not forsake them.” (Isa. 42:16)

It is the anthem, sung of Alsan, the Lion of C. S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe:”
“Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more…”

Light has dawned

For “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.” (Isa. 9:2)

Here – sweet, strong and sure: Light of the World, You are the Lighthouse.

This Christmas, the Light of the World shines. He calls you – come out of darkness, into His marvellous light.