Yet in Thy Dark Streets Shineth,the Everlasting Light

Have you ever noticed how light pierces the dark?

It doesn't just dissipate it or dilute it.

It pierces.

Where once there existed a void, a vast inky blackness, a single struck match... a tiny flame... immediately overpowers it, defeats it, sends it recoiling back from whence it came.

I believe we were made to love the light, to crave it.

Light equals life.

This time of year lights shine brilliantly all around us.

Oh, how I love it!

They twinkle from the boughs of our trees, thick with baubles and tinsel. They outline rooftops, illuminate doors and windows, hilight seasonal lawn ornaments and the occasional creche. In fact, one might be hard-pressed to drive down any dark street at all this special Christmas season.

Yet for all that's beautiful, glittery, and glowing around us, darkness can still exist within us. Our thoughts can be filled with worry. Our hearts can be heavy with pain. Separation and lonliness can cast deep shadows over every other thing that exists in our lives.

What this Christmas season is for some... a wonderful, celebratory time, can for others be a harsh reminder of difficulty and sorrow.

I sometimes have the privilege of praying for people who have asked to be lifted up to the Lord. Some of the individuals I've been praying for lately are facing serious health issues, issues that seem daunting, overwhelming. It can be hard to focus on the light when darkness tries so desperately to hide it.

I've been thinking a lot about this. This juxtaposition between light and darkness.

How wonderful it is that we celebrate Christmas so soon after the winter solstice. On the heels of the longest, darkest night of the year, the Light of the World makes His entrance, and with it... pierces that darkness, shattering everything in this sin-sick world that causes pain and sorrow and sickness and death... and our separation from the Father.

This past Sunday, the last Sunday of Advent, we heard a wonderful sermon at church about this very thing. Jesus came into the world to save sinners like me and you and to rescue us from the darkness. In this world there will be trouble. Ever since the Fall. Always. But Jesus was born into this, among this, to pay the ultimate price for our redemption, to move us from darkness into His marvelous light.

While we are here on this earth - this fallen place - there will still be hardships, but He is with us... His light shining in every dark place; and one day, one glorious day, we will be delivered forever from this fallen world and will live with Him in "the city that has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb." (Revelation 21:23)

We have Jesus to thank for that. The baby whose arrival we'll soon celebrate, the infant in the manger, the spotless Lamb is only the beginning of the story.

That spotless Lamb would one day hang on a cross, for you and for me. That would be the darkest day. He would be pierced for our transgressions, and with that sacrifice, His perfect sacrifice...

we would never have to live in darkness again.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth/ The everlasting Light;

The hopes and fears of all the years/ are met in Thee tonight.

Merry Christmas! May you feel the Light of His presence with you today and always.