“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —John 1:5For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, we can’t avoid the awareness of how short the days have become. Darkness has been creeping into our lives since summer — every day minutes of sunlight are stolen away from us.But that’s changing. From this point on, we get minutes of sunlight back every day. The sun is making a return, and it will bring new life as we move toward spring and summer once again. It’s no coincidence that we celebrate Jesus’ birth at this point of the year. When he arrived, everything changed — history hinged and bent in a new direction. As the expression of God’s love for us, he brings light and new life. Whatever darkness we are experiencing — struggles with mental illness, sin, broken relationships among family or friends, sickness, suffering — we know that a light shines for us. When Jesus came as an infant in Bethlehem, he joined our human experience — even to the point of horrific suffering and death — and pointed a way through it, through the cross, to new and abundant life. This is a pattern He opened for us — it didn’t happen just once to be forgotten. Like a light in darkness, like sunlight returning to the earth, He is the source of our hope. So Christmas is a day for joy and gratitude, a day for generosity and peace. For we walked in darkness but have seen a great light — a child is born to us, a son is given to us.
