Light in the Darkness
Thankyou Peter. My thought for the day today is entitled “light in the darkness”.
Now, I’m sure other Thought for the
Day speakers may touch on this familiar theme as well, but Christmas is a time
for Christmas lights. You may have been at the turning on of the town lights a
few weeks ago, you may have put lights on your tree, and if you drive around
the town at night, you’ll see some epic light installations outside people’s
homes. We wake up our kids and drive them around the town once a year to see
which one wins the prize for the most impressive Christmas lights.
There’s the elegant dangly shimmering
lights, (we’ve just invested in some of those after our last lot got into a
tangled broken mess). There’s the figurines of deer or a lamppost. Best of all
was one house we saw in Stukeley Meadows that had actually had a video image
projected up against a window with a loop to make it look like Father Christmas
arriving into the room with a bundle of presents.
There’s a painting by Dutch artist Rembrandt
called “the Adoration of the Shepherds”, which dates back to 1646. You can see a better image of it on this link. It’s dark and cracked, but you can just make
out at the centre of the picture, Mary and Joseph with their son, but what’s
interesting is that you can hardly make out any light emanating from the
Shepherd’s lamps. All the light is coming from the manger where Jesus is. And
the light coming either from a lamp near him, or in one later representation of
the picture the light is coming from Jesus himself.
The Bible calls “Jesus the Light of
the World”, and there’s a lovely promise made hundreds of years before he came
by the prophet Isaiah: The people walking
in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep
darkness a light has dawned.
[ For more on this verse, see our 2020 socially distanced carol service on our youtube channel here]
We all need light during these dark
days. The world is a dark place, the news is often bleak. The days are short,
and the nights are long, and there are many reasons to get down about things.
Yes you’ll get a gleam of light as
the kids unwrap their presents. You may even see some ceasefires to hostilities
in the trouble spots of the world. But lasting light and life comes from one
place alone. A relationship with Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.
Thank you for listening, and have a
great day.
Charlie Newcombe 06DEC23.