The Light Of Christmas

The Light of Christmas

By Pastor Jim May

One thing that makes Christmas and the Holiday Season such a beautiful time of the year is all of the colorful lights that are used to decorate our homes and businesses all across America. Of course there’s nothing quite like having to put up those lights, and trying to make all the little twinkle lights to work, that has the power to turn you into a Grinch. After hanging 6 strands that you pre-tested, then plugging them in and finding out that half have quit working, you just want to say, “Bah, Humbug” and forget about it. But the beauty of the lights, after they are in place and working, makes the effort worth it all in the end. The lights and decorations look good in the daylight but they really stand out in the darkness.

In the Book of Genesis we are told that God created all things and saw that it was good. He created the evening and the morning and called the time of the passing of each cycle a day. He spoke light into existence, dispelling the darkness that filled the emptiness of the vast space of eternity, carved out a little segment of eternity and called it “Time”, and into this space called “Time” he planned the history of mankind. After all of his work of the Creation, he looked at all that he had done and said that it was good. In God’s wonderful universe, everything was good and it was in unity with God.

Then came that dreadful day when Adam disobeyed God and suddenly everything in God’s creation was no longer good. Darkness entered the world, but not just the darkness of the night, but darkness of the soul and spirit, for at that moment that Adam sinned against God, all of humanity was eternally doomed to spiritual blindness and perpetual darkness, separation from the light of God. From that day and forever more, every child born into this world, is also born into spiritual darkness with a heart of sin.

If you doubt that, just listen to what the Bible says in Proverbs 22:15, "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." And who is called a “fool” in the Word of God? Psalms 14:1-3, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

From this you can see that every one of us was born a fool, born into spiritual darkness, and destined to wander through life blinded to the Truth, without the knowledge of God and without hope. But God, in His great love and infinite mercy, decided to reach out to us and extend grace and forgiveness for all men who would decide of their own free will to seek after him and choose to accept his plan for our salvation from eternal darkness.

So into the gross spiritual darkness that engulfed the heart of man, God sent the Light once again. This time it wasn’t the creation of a great universe, or the speaking into existence of a new sun and stars into the blackness of space. The Light came, quietly, peacefully, and almost completely unnoticed. The Light came in a lowly manger, in a little town called Bethlehem of Judea. In that manger lay a newborn baby, born of a virgin and conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of woman, but not the son of a man. He was the very Son of God, and his name was called Jesus.

John 1:9-14, "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth."

The character, power and majesty of Jesus are given to us in glowing terms through the Prophet Isaiah, who along with many other prophets through the ages, told us that this great day would come when God would once again send Light into the world to dispel the darkness in the heart of man.