BP129
This week, I decided to simply focus on what I think about during the Christmas season. One thing I always associate with Christmas is light.
As a clinical psychologist, I love the light. In the psychodynamic modality, it is often said that we listen and interpret what the patient is saying so that the unconscious can be made conscious; so that what is deeply buried, hidden, split off, and walled off can be brought into awareness.
Humans are prone to repress, suppress, transfer, project, rationalize, displace, deny, and distract from what goes on inside. We settle for darkness instead of allowing the light to shine on our internal selves. So often, we don’t want to be seen.
Do you remember what M. Scott Peck said about therapy? He wrote that “it is a light-shedding process par excellence.” Even psychology is all about bringing light into darkness.
Looking back on my own life, Jesus pursued me and found me several months before Christmas when I was a senior in High School. I remember that everything seemed brighter after I came to believe in Jesus. Every Wednesday night when I took the garbage cans out to the street in southwestern Minnesota, I would look up and see the stars and my spine would tingle with a sense of Jesus’ presence. Wow, was that ever new—seeing the light of the stars and being filled with joy!
I also remember sitting and looking at the Christmas tree that first advent season after my new birth. I looked at it in a way I never had before. I thought of the green Christmas tree as a symbol of Christ’s death on the wooden cross but I also saw it as a symbol of new life. The bright light from the white star on top of the tree reminded me of the light Jesus had shone into my heart, driving out the previous occupant–darkness.
Light. It will always be associated with Christmas for me. The words of Isaiah 9:2ff were very powerful to me, a young man who had been living in darkness since the day of my birth. Isaiah writes:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone. . .
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end . . .
The people who walked in darkness. That had been my life–until the light shone into my deep darkness. What an amazing experience to be delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the beloved son! In many ways, that deliverance felt like night and day to me. As it should. I was a new creation.
The universe is full of binaries. One of them is the contrast between darkness and light.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness and everyone must choose his side.”
Thomas Adams said, “Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness.”
Another well known theologian, John Newton, wrote, “There are many who stumble in the noon-day, not for want of light, but for want of eyes.”
So, we need the light, and we need eyes to see the light. Otherwise, we are condemned to stumble around in the dark.
Ephesians 5:8-10 says, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true) and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.
Amazing! Because of Jesus, we not only have eyes that can now see the light but we also “are the light of the Lord.” For those of us who now walk by faith and not by sight, Jesus calls us to “walk as children of light.”
Children of light. What a miracle! Especially when before Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, we were darkness. Darkness was our identity. We were lost, blind, without eyes to see.
Now we are light.
The gospel of John does not begin with the birth of Christ as do Matthew and Luke. Rather, it starts this way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it . . .The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
Jesus is God, the Creator of all things, including light. He is life for us, and His life is the light of every man and woman. His identity is the true light. He shines in the darkness, in a world that is veiled by darkness.
At Christmas, I also think of that great star shining brighter than all the others that settled over Bethlehem. What an awesome sight that was. A world that had not heard God’s voice in 400 years, was visited not simply by a prophet or a good teacher. God’s dear son, Jesus, came to be with us, came to be Immanuel.
What hope! What life! What light!
How glorious will the believers’ homecoming be when they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever ~ Revelation 22:5
So, never forget light during the season where we celebrate the birth of Jesus. He came to be our light and to make us light.
Hallelujah!
Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ ~ John 8:12
