NO NEED TO HIDE – CHRIST’S LIGHT HAS COME!
John 1:1-14
The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas 2024, Year C
Analysis by Louis Moehlman
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
From Wikimedia Commons
“God’s promise to me in Christ is that wherever there is darkness in my life, the light of God in Christ will shine for me.”
DIAGNOSIS: Hiding in the darkness
Step 1: Initial Diagnosis (External Problem): A false sense of enLIGHTenment
When the faith only becomes religion, our thoughts may go something like this: “Thanks be to God that the Word has become flesh and is now here to dwell among us. I don’t know that I could have made it through another week of hearing another Christmas song on the radio I never listen to. We’ve made it through another year of the obligatory Sunday School Christmas programs and the Christmas Eve Candlelight services. God’s gift to us is finally here. God getting off the stick and doing something for us. We, the people, God’s chosen people, who sat in the darkness and have now seen a great light! Now, to the list of things that the man-in-red didn’t bring me for Christmas this year…”
Step 2: Advance Diagnosis (Internal Problem): Hello darkness, my old friend
Do I really like living in the light of faith? As a night owl, I have to say that I like the dark. I like that I don’t have to face the reality of the world and that I can do what I want to do, the way I want to get things done. No distractions, free from the noise of life. Darkness is what I find comfortable – and perhaps we find it comforting, too.
I want God to tell me that my darkness is ok.
Step 3: Final Diagnosis (Ultimate Problem): Who turned ON the lights?
Instead, God just points the floodlight on me, shining light into the things that I would rather keep hidden in the darkness, as though whatever darkness I have to hide is even my own fault.
But even if I tried, as best I could, to live up to the expectations of what God has for me, where does that leave me but in the darkness – outer darkness at that – where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The light I see is nothing but the lamp of the interrogation room where God, lurking in the inky shadows, reminds me of just how screwed I really am.
PROGNOSIS: The Light that overcomes darkness
Step 4: Initial Prognosis (Eternal Solution): The Light of Christ
But there is a promising light that shines in the darkness. Christ’s light shines in the darkness of my life with a promise. God’s promise to me in Christ is that wherever there is darkness in my life, the light of God in Christ will shine for me.
His Light has come into the world, and whatever dingy and dimly-lit stable there is in our world of darkness, his birth cancels out darkness and beams light instead, once and for all.
Step 5: Advance Prognosis (Internal Solution): EnLIGHTened hearts
Therefore, Christ’s light shines in the darkness of my own heart. The false comfort of the darkness was that I could willfully and easily ignore that which I was trying to keep hidden from God – those things that, as any child knows, we don’t want our parents to find out because we fear punishment and retribution, or hearing those dreaded words, “I’m disappointed in you.”
But instead, God offers us the peace of our baptism, that we are His children and that there isn’t anything that is going to change that. God doesn’t send the light into the world to condemn the world, but so that the whole world might be saved through the light (John 3:17). Our hearts are changed and shine with the same light that frees us, so that we might free others.
Step 6: Final Prognosis (External Solution) – EnLIGHTened life
Doubling-down on the baptismal promises that were made to me, the light of Christ will shine in me, no two ways about it. I get to go out into the darkness of the world with the light of God shining in me with the hope and prayer – a faith and trust – that it’s enough to shine light into others’ darkness.
We are the embodiment of this Living Light in the world. The Light has pitched His tent among us – and we are the glow of that Light for the world. So, we sit with the world in its darkness, with the light and love of God in Christ shining through us, inviting others to see what God is doing.
