Of all the Christmas traditions that have survived, Christmas lights are probably my favorite. The warm lights add cheerful color to four weeks of the darkest part of the year. Of course, there is always the danger that the decorations will distract from the significance of Christmas. Many unbelievers have elaborate light shows in their yards without giving any special thought to the birth of Christ. Should we do away with the lights then? No. Christmas has a better claim to being the season of lights than any other holiday. If we spend some time understanding the words that Scripture uses to describe the advent of Jesus, it’s no surprise that western culture so preserved the tradition of displaying lights that we still do it today.
Scripture speaks of Jesus as bringing light into a dark world. Before we examine any passages, consider how the world before the coming of Christ was dark. One, Israel was not an independent kingdom; God’s people were under Roman rule. Two, there had been no revelation from God worthy of being recorded as Scripture for many generations. Three, influential Jewish religious leaders had sidetracked the true worship of God into legalism. All the other nations still enthusiastically worshipped other gods, or perhaps venerated the ruler of the state as a god. Dark times indeed.
Light first appears in the story of the New Testament when John the Baptist was born and Zechariah was filled with Spirit-led praise. John, he prophesied, would prepare the way for the Lord. This plan, the old priest said, was “through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). This statement is both glorious and somber. God considered the spiritual plight of the nation to be bleak; they were in darkness, and many were in the shadow of death. However, just like when God heard the cry of the Israelite nation enslaved to Egypt so many years before, salvation was close at hand. Zechariah called the coming salvation “dayspring from on high.” Imagine night just a few minutes away from dawn, where the first light would pierce the darkness at any time.
One of the names for Jesus communicates this idea of a light signaling the coming dawn. He is called the “bright and morning star” (Rev. 22:16). The message of Christ in Scripture is likewise called the day star in 2 Peter 1:19. The morning star is the planet Venus, and it appears in the sky in the hours before daybreak. When Jesus was born, it was a signal that the spiritually dark world—where God was silent, and legalism and paganism dominated—was about to be interrupted. The world is not the same since Jesus came.
Jesus was not only the herald that the daylight of God’s saving work was coming; He is Himself the bright light of God’s salvation. Isaiah 9:2 speaks of how “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.” That verse is quoted as a prophecy in Matthew 4:13-16. “And leaving Nazareth,” Jesus "came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, ‘The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.’” When Jesus was on the earth, wherever He went light went. Those sitting in the shadow of demonic possession, idolatrous religion, convoluted legalism, and even sickness and death were delivered by the power of His word and presence. Jesus carried in Himself the power to defeat the darkness, and many gospel accounts record the salvation He brought.
What does it mean for us today that Jesus is the Light? First, it means that when He broke into the world, it changed the world so much that every person is affected by it. John the apostle often writes about Jesus in terms of light. “In him was life,” John said, which life “was the light of men” (John 1:4). The Light that is Jesus, John says, “was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). The gods of false religions do not have the same power since Jesus defeated them in the Cross and Resurrection. The message of Christ now goes out to the world, and people in its far corners will find this message of Christ if they will only seek the light they have.
Second, since Jesus is the Light, we who believe are enabled by God to see and reflect His light. 2 Corinthians 3 discusses Moses who, after spending time with the Lord on Mount Sinai, came down with his skin literally shining with God’s glory. Though many people, including Israel, cannot see the Light of Christ in the Scriptures, “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18). We understand who Jesus is and see Him in the Scriptures. As a result, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). When we look for Christ in the Scriptures, our heart reflects the light we find their and reflects the face of Christ to others. How amazing is that!
The third and last application is directly related to this Christmas season. Since Jesus is the Light, that night when He was born was the first sign of the light of salvation He was bringing. We live in the aftermath of His light, so we understand full well what His birth meant: deliverance from sin, reconciliation with God, peace with other believers, and promise that one day the earth will be full of the glory of the Lord. So when you turn on Christmas lights at night, consider how those small lights are like the first light that His birth was to a dark world that would never be the same.
The above article was written by Jonathan Kyser. He is a pastoral assistant at NorthStone Baptist Church in Pensacola, FL. To offer him your feedback, comment below or email us at strengthforlife461@gmail.com.
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