A Night Light

John 1:9-13

So many children need night lights to go to sleep. It makes the darkness less ominous, less foreboding, and more empty in all the right ways. Which explains why many adults leave lights on at night—we illumine the front or backyards; we leave a light lit in the bathroom; we may even leave a light or two burning throughout the house—just assurance, just a bit of added security, just a little light to hold the darkness at bay. 

At Christmas, the analogy of Christ as light flows all through our celebrations. Those images never grow dull or repetitive. We use another analogy a lot not only during this season, but nearly all the time, that as we look over the world, we see it shrouded in darkness. There is so much going on and happening all around us that outlooks become dim, hopes fade, and stress veils the wonder and joy of simply living. So, we meet Christmas in a great proclamation of light and dark, night and day, glory and longing, and so on.

It is nothing new.

Son Perry is an avid fan of old movies. As we watch Christmas movies as a family, Chelsea winds us through the recent offerings, but Perry takes us back to black and white. One of the films was Cary Grant and David Niven in “The Bishop’s Wife,” a classic tale of an overworked clergy who forgets everything really important until an angel comes an straightens him out. What struck me was that all the issues raised—Christmas as stressful, all the wrong impulses for giving, all the family angst, and whatnot are not new inventions. They were all there in 1947, too. 

We struggle with the advent of God’s light because so much around us all the time declares it to be a silly want and wish with no connection to life as it is, the world as it works, and what we can expect on any given day. 

Well, what God is doing doesn’t have anything to do with the world as it is! 

St. John makes it clear—something wondrously miraculous is happening. There is a new revelation coming to us. God is coming to us!

And he goes on to say that not everyone is going to get it, not even among those who should know the story even before it is told—e.g., David Niven’s overwrought bishop—a man of God presumably steeped in the story of all that Christ did, does, and will do, yet blinds himself to everything in the darkness of doing the work of the Church, work that completely lost sight of God. 

Heed the warning—but not as a condemnation—recall clearly and forever that Christ did not come to condemn but redeem us all from sin and darkness. Heed it as a morning alarm to wake up to see things as they are in the presence of God and to accept them as so. 

In the movie, Mr. Niven struggles to believe that God is helping him, that Mr. Grant really is the angel he says he is. The light shines gloriously all around him—at one point, even an architectural drawing of a church the bishop wants to build glows from within—and he cannot see it. Too distracted and distraught by all that is around him and happening before him, his vision remains dark and clouded. 

Ever feel like that as Christmas gets closer?

For some of us, these last few days before the BIG DAY are a slog at full speed to get everything exactly perfect. Everything seems to get messier and messier, more unraveled, and less together as each hour passes. We forget all about comfort and joy, peace and blessing. 

Stop.

Breathe.

Behold the wonder of what is before us. 

Consider again the story of the entrance of light into the world. On a dark night, overwrought and overburdened by the stress of a mass momentary relocation, a small family wandered into an over-stuffed town that had no room for them. They took what shelter there was among stabled animals. And there, a child was born, a son given to them who was a Son given to all of us. Light shone in the darkness. New life entered the worn and weary life of the world as it was. Shepherds—shepherds, mind you!—heard choirs of angels singing of good news that was for them—and if it was good news for them, rest assured it was good news for the rest of us, too. 

Take all of that in—soak in it. Let it refresh your vision, open your eyes, and help you to see.

Then allow it to illumine your hearts and minds in such a way that it informs what you say and do. 

Mr. Niven finally sees at the very end of the movie the mess he had made all by himself by being blinded by the darkness of his ambitions, insecurities, and fear of his parishioners. He sees what is really important when the angel tells him as he complains that none of his prayers have been answered—

Oh, no—you did not ask for your plans to come to fruition, you asked for guidance—that you got, now use it…

All through the story, the angel filled in where the overwrought bishop disappeared beneath his stressed out racing around—that was the answer—stop, breathe, refocus—see what the angel does—now act. 

Do the same.

If you mistakenly go to Target to get toothpaste and hit the lines bending around and down and through the aisles to check out, breathe, greet the moment with Christ’s light, maybe offering whispered prayers for everybody there and yourself. As you get ready for the Christmas party you really don’t want to go to with people you would rather not see, stop, recall them being children of God, and meet them as such. Or don’t go—attending for all the wrong reasons ensures all the wrong things happening. Let light guide you. Or if you awaken to an absence—the missing face, the now silent voice, and the hurt of emptiness, let Christ shine through you with healing grace, redeeming mercy, and existential comfort—all of which are real, actual, and present in every moment, for God is in every moment, everywhere, all the time. Fall into the everlasting arms.

Now insert your own scenarios from your very real Christmas season. Follow the pattern. See what might happen.

God has done a new thing. God does it as often and as many times as it takes for light to shine in the darkness. God never slumbers nor sleeps. God is ever-present. 

Awaken to the light. Arise, shine, for your light has come.