Ladies' Christmas Devotional
Light and Darkness
Patricia Dowers
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light." These verses, as most of you know, are the opening verses of God's Word, the Bible.
In reading through the Bible, many times I am struck by how often light and darkness are mentioned or inferred in the same context. In fact, this topic is worthy of a much larger Bible study but for our purposes today, it will be a short Bible devotional.
I John 1:5 tells us that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all". I Timothy 6:16 tells us that our Lord Jesus is the God Who dwells in the light. These and many other passages tell me that God loves light.He loves to light up the darkness as he did on that first day of creation. Just imagine the awesome beauty when the light from the newly created sun shown through the Garden of Eden. Each day must have been more glorious than the day before ... until the darkness came, the terrible darkness of sin and death that blocked out the light.
Oh, the light was still there. Just no longer visible in the hearts of the first man and woman or their children to come. The Holy God of light could no longer fellowship with the children of light which were now the children of darkness. I do not know how much the heart of God can hurt but I know that nothing can hurt His heart more than His own dear children.
Praise God, He loved us still. So much so that He made a way to bring His children back into the light. But it would take the most unthinkable sacrifice of the most precious part of Himself. God would give up His own Son, Jesus Christ, perfect and innocent, to the darkness of the sin of the world. All of the sin! I cannot even bear my own sin. I cannot fathom bearing the sin of the whole world! The darkness cannot be any darker as when God takes away His light.
God chose a dark night during a very dark time in history to send His Light into the world as a tiny baby born to a frightened but faithful young girl. That baby was Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the son of Mary, who was the descendant of King David, just as Scripture foretold.
In the cold, dark night above Bethlehem, humble shepherds were suddenly overwhelmed by God's angels of light, praising God and announcing the birth of His Son. God truly loves to surprise us with His light.
God also shone the brightest star ever seen by men to light up the dark sky over the place where He lay. The shepherds followed the star to the stable where the Son of God lay in the hay of a manger. God's light always leads us to a place of humility.
This star led the wise men on their journey from a faraway, pagan land, following the light to the Child, Jesus, the Light of the world. The Light shone despite the darkness of Herod's heart who tried his best to snuff it out.
Years later, darkness hung over the earth as a bleeding, suffering, innocent Christ as the Lamb of God, hung on a Roman cross along with all the sin of the world. He suffered in silence enduring the physical pain of the torture and piercing nails until the deepest pain of all, when God, the Father, in His holiness, turned His back on His only begotten Son, so not to behold the sin Jesus bore for you and I. At that moment, God turned out His light on His Son, in order to offer us His Light in salvation. We are so unworthy but God loves us that much.
There was another darkness. This was the darkness of the tomb where Jesus lay for three days while the world waited. But God, Who loves to shine His light, filled the body of Jesus with light and eternal life and raised Him from the dead on the third day. I am sure if anyone had been looking into the tomb at that moment, they would have been blinded by the brilliance! Jesus had fulfilled His mission and His Father was pleased. God made the way for us to become the children of light for eternity by believing on the One Who died to save us from sin and death and darkness.
I pray this Christmas season that the Light of God's gift of salvation is shining in your heart so brightly that even when trials come that dim your light for a time... you just wait. The Light of God will come bursting through. He loves to shine His light.