Christmas Devotional - Day 5: Christmas is About The Lights

Traveling at night is particularly enjoyable during the Christmas season. Christmas lights can be seen for miles piercing the vast darkness of the cold Nebraska night. Sometimes it's all you can see. The fields and buildings are blacked out - but the outline is seen because of the lights.

John tells us that Jesus arrival that first Christmas can be understood in much the same way. ¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Jn1:1–5 Strange as it may seem, that baby born in a Bethlehem stable did not come into existence nine months earlier. He has always existed. In fact, He was the agent in the creation of everything - all things were made through Him. Since He is the creator of life - in Him was life. Now that life is eternal and knows no limits - no end. And that very fact makes that life the light of men. Everything is dark when there is no light at the end of the tunnel. What is the point of living well if this is all there is? What darkness there is when hope is only for today - if that. We might think, well I will just live it up here and now, but the fear of death is lifelong slavery (He 2:15). But then God did a wonderful unimaginable merciful thing… He sent that "life" that "Light of men" into this dark fear-filled dying world. How did He do this? When God sought to express the offer of "life" to His created beings who do not have capacity to understand such things, He sent His perfect likeness or the living "Word". His "Word" signifies the expression of everything that He is. The Word is the "light of the world". The light remains. Darkness tried everything imaginable to overcome and snuff out the light but the light shines in the darkness. From a satanic ruler named Herod to the wicked religious leaders - seems the whole world wanted to put out the light. But the darkness has not overcome it. Dear friends, the Christmas lights on the plains are beautiful but they cannot hold a candle to the life that is the light of men. Nothing and no one will ever be able to extinguish this everlasting light. Our hope rests not in temporal fragile lights here today and gone tomorrow. Our hope is in the eternal light, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who spoke, "let there be light" has spoken the same to us, giving us life eternal.

Are you walking in the light (1Jn 1:6-7)?