Genesis 1:3 "God spoke: "Light!" And light appeared." (MSG)
John 1:4-5 "In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (NIV)
Revelation 21:23 "The City doesn't need sun or moon for light. God's Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp!" (MSG)
When my daughter Fawn was serving in AmeriCorp, she loved to call me up and tell me about her adventures. She would tell me about parachuting out of planes, extreme white water rafting and other things guaranteed to make a mother’s heart stop. Part of me wanted her to stop telling me about what she was doing but I also knew I would worry even more about what she was doing and NOT telling me about!
One time, while she was stationed in Tennessee, she and her friends decided to explore a cave. They got hold of all the gear, including those little lamps you wear on your head and off they went into this cave. They went underground about a mile to where the cave floor dropped off, then jumped from ledge to ledger going even deeper underground. When they reached the lower level they explored for awhile, then sat in a circle and turned off their lamps. I shuddered as Fawn described putting her hand up in front of her face, touching her nose with it, and being unable to see it in the absolute darkness. I shuddered again when she told me about the darkness feeling like a weight pressing on her. I cannot imagine the horror of absolute darkness.
I am a creature of the light. If it is overcast, raining or foggy for more than a few days I start physically feeling the lack of sunlight on me. I get a crabby and out of sorts. People have told me that I suffer from a vitamin D deficiency, that vitamin D is in the sunlight, and that is why I get crabby when there isn’t any sunlight. My response to that is, "Whatever!" I don’t care about why it happens! Just let me feel the sunlight on my skin! I am meant to be in the light.
God is a Being of light and He also means for me to be in the light. The first book of the Bible tells of how the soon-to-be-creation was dark and shapeless. It then records God’s very first word of creation "God spoke, "Light!" and light appeared" Did God need to create light in the universe first? No, He didn’t. I honestly believe that, had He wanted to, God could have put the stars and the planets in place, separated the land from the water, filled the seas with the fish, grew the grass and created the animals all in the absolute darkness. But He didn’t want to. He wanted the light first because He wanted His creation to be born in the light and to exist within His light.
Then something went terribly wrong and through Adam and Eve sin-darkness entered creation and human souls. Throughout the centuries that sin-darkness gripped the world. Atonement and reconciliation with God was only obtained through inadequate means - animal sacrifices that were temporary fixes to the darkness that separated the created from the Creator..
But God was determined to restore us to the light. So He sent the purest, love-light of Heaven to us to restore us to the light of relationship with God. He sent His only begotten Son to be born in a stable in the little town of Bethlehem. He set a bright light up in the heavens - a star like no other star - to guide the wise men to Bethlehem, marking where the gift of light lay. He split the darkness of the night with the light of His glory and with the heavenly hosts of angels to announce the birth of the Messiah, the promised light of God.
All of creation stirred with hope as the Light of the World was born as human flesh.
With the birth of this Child of Light everything changed. He brought God-light into the world and broke the grip that sin-darkness had on us. Jesus’ birth gives us the opportunity to live in His light, in permanent relationship with God. His birth gives us the promise of an eternity in the light of His presence.
Darkness is defeated in all who will seek the Light of the World.
Does sin-darkness still have it’s cold hold on you? Are you living in the darkness? That is not how you were meant to be. You were created to be a creature of the Light - God’s Light. God’s light is not far from you - even if you think you are in absolute darkness. Call out to the Light of the World - He is a whisper away from you. Call out to Jesus and confess that sin-darkness has it’s hold on you. Ask Him to take away the sin darkness and to fill your life with His light. His heart’s desire is to fill you with His life.
God is light. His first words of creation were to command the light. He sent Jesus to that stable to bring the light of God into the world to dispel the sin-darkness and to fill us with His light. But there is even more. Someday soon we will live in His presence for all eternity. Darkness will be permanently banished from the Holy City of New Jerusalem and we will truly live in the only true light - the light of His glory.
Father God, as much as I need the sunlight on my skin to be physically whole I need the Son’s Light even more to be on my eternal soul to be spiritually whole. Thank You for sending Your Son to be the Light of the World and to be my Life-Light. Thank You for the promise of an eternity in Your presence where the only light that we will need is the light of Your glory.