This time of year I can easily rile up one of my friends who hates the short days. Just mention 4:30 sunsets and he starts ranting about waking up in the dark, driving to work in the dark, driving home in the dark, missing being outside because it is always dark! He is not alone. The last few years the discussion to make Daylight Saving Time permanent has picked up steam.
There is a positive side to winter’s early sunsets. I am a Christmas lights guy. I get them up right after Thanksgiving because I am not the guy leaving them up til June. I hang lights on all the roof lines, around the front door and lining the walkway; not too many and not too few. Last weekend, sitting by a fire in the living room, I watched all the lights blink on at 4:40. Early sunsets mean I get to enjoy Christmas lights all evening.
Christmas lights are one of the things we get right about Christmas. Christmas is about light! The sky over Bethlehem lit up with God’s glory when the angels announced Christ’s birth to the shepherds. A star shone in the night to lead the wise men to their destination. Light is hope, light is guidance. Don’t we all need it? And the sooner the better.
The writer of Ecclesiastes, a collection of wisdom said:
How sweet is the daylight, and how pleasant it is to behold the sunshine! Even if a person lives many years, let him enjoy them all, recalling that there will be many days of darkness to come. — Ecclesiastes 11:7-8
Most of us do not need to recall days of darkness to come. The dusk line runs down the middle of our Christmas celebrations right now.
Many have memories of light and joy-filled Christmas mornings now contrasted with loneliness and grieving. For some, there is a Christmas gloom because of broken relationships with no illuminated path to healing. Others are in the dark because their future feels uncertain.
The wisdom writer is honest — there will be many days of darkness. How sweet the promise of daylight when we are in the dark.
As we light candles in worship this season, our community reads a passage from the biblical book of Isaiah each week. Each passage is a word from God promising light to his people. There are a lot of promises of light in Isaiah because the recipients are in a dark period of their history. The only time they consider God is when they are infuriated and curse him, blaming him for the gloom and darkness of life.
I do not know what you think of God, what you say to him when you are in a time of darkness, but I know how God responds to you. In Isaiah, immediately after shaking their fist at God, he responds:
Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. — Isaiah 9:1
Nevertheless, in spite of, in spite of indifference to God, in spite of the cursing and misguided blaming, God graciously invites us out of the gloom. It is to the distressed that God then makes a promise:
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned. — Isaiah 9:2
Although life is at times the land of deep darkness, there is a great light. Jesus, the promised deliverer, is the light of God shining in the darkness. There is hope and resilience in darkness.
The apostle John, who records Jesus’ teaching and promises of light, says: “God is light, in him there is no darkness.” God’s character is light and purity, he shines in truth and wisdom. He is the dawn, the hope here, in the land of the living.
Christmas is the celebration of that light arriving. Jesus, speaking to people wrestling with his identity and his message, confused by loud voices who denounce belief, invites them:
I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. — John 12:46
Jesus comes so that we do not have to stay in darkness. You do not have to stay in darkness but walk with him who provides light. That is his promise. Is it true? Can the light of Jesus do anything for those living in deep darkness? Do his promises of guidance, hope and healing hold true?
Jesus invited people simply to come and see. To those who are struggling and suffering in darkness he says: Come and see if my words are a lamp for your feet, a light for your path. Come and see if I am the giver of life and the light that lets you enjoy life. God finds joy in you — and he gives light by which we may see and enjoy life with him.
Christmas is light. The light of Christ that came into the world continues to shine today.
The Rev. Cary Slater is lead pastor of Covenant Church of Easton, located at 1 Sport Hill Road. Covenant Church is part of the Evangelical Covenant Church denomination. Founded in 1885 by Swedish immigrants it is now a rapidly growing multi-ethnic denomination in the United States and Canada with ministries on five continents of the world.
