“My wife, Sheila, tells me I look like Brad Pitt in the dark.”
I like the dark. Christmas tree lights look prettier in the dark. My office looks organized in the dark. My wife, Sheila, tells me I look like Brad Pitt in the dark—'nuff said.
I like how when you turn off the lights, everything looks really dark, but then you start to see things you couldn't see before as your eyes adjust to the darkness that surrounds you.
I wonder if that's what's going on with our world. Is it just that our eyes are adjusting to the darkness around us? It seems that way to me.
What I like the most about darkness is how it interacts with the light. In the Gospel of John it says: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."( John 1:5, ESV) John is referring to Jesus as the light, but this principle holds true for any light.
Take a room and make it dark. Make sure it is dark enough. Make it a little darker still. The darker you make the room; the easier it is for the smallest of light to overcome. You can light a match in the darkness of a 5,000 seat auditorium and it will shine brightly and overcome the darkness. Darkness takes small lights and makes them even more effective.
What are the most important lights in your life—the reading lamp by your bed? Is it the light on your keychain? What about the light in your fridge? When we used to lived in New Brunswick, we had a very narrow hallway upstairs. We also had three small boys who loved Lego and Hot Wheels and a vast array of other hard, pointy bits. At three in the morning when I would get up and walk down that hall for the reason anyone gets out of bed at three in the morning, the most important light to me was the small nightlight that helped me navigate the minefield between our bedroom and the bathroom. Even a small light makes a big difference in a dark, dangerous place.
I sometimes ponder about the Christmas Star that worked like a GPS for the Magi to locate Jesus (Matt 2:9). Christmas cards are full of pictures that portray the Christmas Star. I've personally read hundreds of cards that give various artistic renderings of Bethlehem and the manger—all under a brilliant Christmas Star that looked more like an asteroid about to make deep impact than it did a star. Somehow I don't think the star was as big or as brilliant as we make it out to be. I don't think it shone like search lights at a movie premiere. After all, it took experts to notice and follow it.
If the star was as big as we make it out to be, there would have been crowds around Jesus' home and the Bethlehem Inquirer would have been knocking on Joseph and Mary's door-looking for an exclusive, but that wasn't the case. The star drew attention to itself because it was new and different, not because it was particularly big, or bold or bright. The point I am trying to make is that lights don't have to be bigger or brighter; they just need to shine with the light they have. They have to shine with a different light, a new light.
Which leads me to one last comment about lights: Be careful about the quality of your light. Make sure your light is different from the cold, harsh, office lights that populate our world like a phosphorescent plague. True this kind of light works. It helps us see, but at the same time, everyone hates it.
Let me suggest the kind of light you should be shining this Christmas. Candlelight is the best-that's why we have so many candlelight services, right? Candlelight is a warm, natural, light that ebbs and flows and moves with gentle grace. That is the quality of light we are to have as Christians.
Unfortunately, the church is guilty of using the wrong kind of light sometimes. We figure the bigger and the brighter and the harsher the better, but, trust me, nothing beats the effectiveness of a bunch of small, gentle, graceful lights shining together. After all, what is prettier, or more thought-provoking, than a bunch of small, brightly colored lights nestled among the branches of a tree?
"In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)