Light and Dark

Post Thanksgiving, people are quick to move straight into Christmas mode. The nice thing about Thanksgiving coming early this year is that there's a whole week between turkey day and the beginning of Dec, which for most people it seems is enough to cause a brief pause between holidays to reflect. At least it did for me.

I spent a lot of time meditating on the power of God's law in our lives; it's ability to reveal not only our need for salvation that we cannot attain on our own, but also the great grace that is shown by God when He sent his son, Jesus, to earth to die on the cross for us. In this meditating I've found a new and revived appreciation for the Law as well as God’s sacrifice. I’ve had a renewed spirit of thanksgiving and joy over the fact that there was absolutely no way that we, as humans, could have ever attained, or regained, our righteousness without the blood of Jesus to cover our sins. He didn’t have to do it. There is nothing about us to compel God to go the extra mile out of obligation. Rather He chose to show His great love for His creation voluntarily.

Then, this morning I came across a Christmas sermon on my iPod that I apparently downloaded last year and wasn’t aware of. It's funny how His timing is always perfect. The sermon talked about the power of light in the dark. I think most of us have heard some kind of similar argument at some point, but here's the question that forced me to pause: what if Jesus had never come to earth?

If He had chosen not to come to earth, not to be born as a baby, not to live a sinless life, not to die, not to suffer, not to love...where would we be? I find that it's easy to brush off the concept of what light brings to darkness, because light is always here. When talking spiritually, it's easy to brush off the necessity of God's light in our lives when the hope that He's given us is already here. When truth is revealed, whether we choose to live our lives in grateful submission to God Almighty or not, there is light, there is hope in the world because Jesus lives.

But what if that light had not come?

What if?

What if we were still lost and stumbling in the darkness? What joy would we have? What peace? Light brings comfort, hope and peace to places of darkness and fear. God's law shows us just how dark the dark really is. But thanks be to God that He has not left us without a way out of the darkness.

I encourage you as we prepare to enter into the Advent season to take some time to reflect on how truly wonderful it is that we have a birth to celebrate. Because the life that came from that unique and precious birth brought us light to shine in our darkness.