Christmas meditation on John chapter 1....

For thousands of years before Jesus was born festivals were held across Northern Europe at the darkest time of the year. Near to the shortest day a solstice festival would be held with holly and mistletoe, evergreen trees and singing, and plays and stories about the promise of spring.  In the darkest nights of winter, especially on the days when the daylight never seems to arrive,  this festival reminded people that the spring would come.

In more recent times, relatively speaking, the people across the northern parts of Europe became Christian. As a result the church leaders decided this season was the perfect time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  No one actually knew when his real birthday fell. They saw a parallel between the old winter festival and the coming of Jesus.  They pointed out that the joy felt at the returning of the sun with the lengthening days of spring is the same joy we know in the life Jesus brings into the world.

Jesus' coming brings a promise of new life and hope to the world. In this way those early theologians interpreted Jesus as the life that creates and continues to bring new life into the world.  When we begin to understand Jesus in this cosmic perspective we see that he is so much more than just the "reason for the season".  Jesus is the grace that gives life to all creation and continues to sustain all that exists.  He appeared in human form so that in this embodiment we could see that love is both crucial and essential as a description of the new life Jesus brings.  With Jesus present as incarnated love, love as the energy of the universe can flourish and grow.

The bible narratives remind us that Jesus was born when Caesar was the emperor in Rome and Herod was his regent in Palestine. These two both have gone down in history for their notorious record on human rights - they were despotic tyrants who stayed in power through a reign of terror.  The social and political climate into which Jesus was born could hardly have been worse.  And yet, just as after the solstice has passed each new day becomes longer and lighter than the one before, so the good news of Jesus began to spread through the world.  It was indeed "Good news of great joy for today in the city of David is born a Saviour"

This reminds us that even on the darkest nights there is light in the world and that dawn will come.  The light of Christ has come into the world and though there will be moments of darkness as nations rise and fall, politicians come and go, and the economy goes up and down, always for Christians there is the glimmer of the presence of the light of Christ and the promise of more light yet to come.

This light cannot be bought, it cannot be won as a prize, cannot be withheld from anyone who wants it, and is not dependent on whether you have been "naughty or nice". It is not something that can be marketed or exploited. It is there for Christians but Christ came to the world because God loves the whole world (in the Greek - the cosmos), so it is there for everyone. This light is fundamental to the functioning of the universe itself. And at the centre of Christmas is the wonderful free gift from God - the invitation to become children of the the light. This is a free gift that is so different to the other gifts that people strive and struggle to possess, to earn or to win in the power based society in which we live.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness neither comprehends nor is able to overcome it. This great gift does not fit into the pattern of the world's way of doing things.  This light and this promise to become children of light is the life of the world and brings us hope at this dark part of the year. 


Image "Candles" courtesy of  Chris Sharp / FreeDigitalPhotos.net