Advent 2025, Week 4 – John’s Light of Christmas Past/Present/Future, Part 2
What is the darkness in your life? Maybe it is in a relationship. Maybe it is inside you, like anxiety, which is a part of my life, or depression. These long dark nights, like yesterday, the winter solstice. The longest, darkest night of the year. It can affect us. The cold. Maybe your darkness is financial. Maybe a habit you just can’t seem to kick. Maybe a negative, bitter, complaining attitude through which you view things in your life, and it is affecting your daily life and relationships.
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:4-5
In this verse a new light is shining in the darkness. There is hope.
John is saying, “We need a new creation story, because of Jesus.” Jesus is creator, and Jesus is the light shining in the darkness. That’s different than the original creation story, but just as true.
By saying that Jesus is the light, John is directing our attention to all sorts of imagery about light. Not just the light of creation. But the light of the pillar of fire that guided the nation of Israel on their journey to the promised land. The light of the Bethlehem star.
All of these symbolized something. Yes there was a physical light, but in Jesus that light is symbolic, as he is, John says, the light of life.
When we are in darkness, we can feel dead. Or we feel like death warmed over. We can feel exhausted, paralyzed, stuck. Or like me when I was a kid coming up from the basement, rushing up the stairs because it felt like the darkness was literally nipping at my heels. A lack of light symbolizes death. The valley of the shadow of death. You know the darkness you feel in your life. And you long for life to enter that dying situation.
Yet, Jesus, John tells us, is the bringer of light and life, and Jesus himself brings that life. In Jesus is life. He said that he came to bring eternal life in the future and abundant life now. More on that in a moment.
For the time being, notice that we are talking about the light of Christmas past. John is saying that Jesus brought a new kind of light, the light of life, when he was born. Jesus’ real human birth was God taking on flesh, an astounding new hope for new life. John puts it this way just a few verses later in John 1:9, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”
After reminding his readers of the light of Christmas past, John writes about the light of Christmas present, and we’ll learn about that in the next post.
Photo by Mehran Biabani on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 