Reflections at Christmas 15

John 3:19-20, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”

The Light had come, and rather than embrace Him, we steadfastly shunned Him. We preferred our ignorance of God and our origins and purpose because it allowed us to create gods of our own that justified our sin, immorality, and ungodliness. Indeed, these gods would applaud it, and our descent into sin accelerated and expanded, and began to overtake every function of our existence in our thoughts, words, and actions. Our deeds became evil.

It didn’t happen all at once, we had to practice it. We called ourselves good and did evil. We did what was right in our own eyes, and when the Light came to usher us out of our darkness, not all would accompany Him for fear of exposure before Him. We knew we were not righteous – not one of us.

And that is the point. Darkness would have us dread stepping into the Light of Love which frees so that we choose bondage over it. It would have us feel that we are the ones doing the sacrificing by giving up sin, instead of realizing God sacrificed for us that we may step into all that is good, beautiful, pure, and holy. Darkness would have us lose ourselves, oblivious to the shrinking of our spirits, while Christ came that we might finally have life abundantly.

The Lord of Light came, set before us life and death, and asked us to choose.