What Makes Christmas So Wondrous

This Christmas season I have been considering what makes Christmas so wondrous. In doing so, through my time in the Word, I have been shown things that I have never realized before. So over the next few posts, I want to share with you what I have been learning about why this season truly is so wondrous.

I remember when we were in Puerto Rico while the hurricane was raging around us, a moment in the middle of the night when we were in complete darkness. There was not even a hint of light. I remember my eyes being opened and they actually hurt from the lack of light. I imagine it was because my eyes were trying to adjust to the black, while maybe trying to find a hint of light.

It was a weird feeling that I had never felt before physically, but I remember the days when I walked a part from God, and in a way it felt unsettling, like there was a lack of light.

In the beginning…

In one of my studies, I was brought back to Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth. It never stuck out to me before that the first words recorded God spoke on the first day were “Let there be light.”

I have had to let that sink in for awhile. Light was the first thing spoken into existence by God. This means that light is foundational.

Why? Because without light, there couldn’t be life. Light is essential for survival and growth. Just like the Light of the world is our foundation, and essential for our own eternal life.

I was reminded also, that because of where we live, the darkest day of the year falls only a few days before Christmas. What a timely reminder of the darkness that you can’t see in the world. But also of the darkness the days before Jesus was born.

The devotional I am reading right now is about the song, O Come O Come Emmanuel, and the second verse of the song gives Jesus the name Dayspring. It means the beginning of morning, and when darkness ended. The beginning of a new day.

Morning came when Jesus was born. The darkness overcome by Light.

“The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” Matthew 4:16

What a glorious light it must have been to the shepherds, when the angel of the Lord were surround by the glory of the Lord that was shining around them.

Light was pushing back the darkness. And light would overcome the darkness every. single. time. Darkness can never overcome the light. It is impossible.

It is Christmas time now, a time when we are putting lights and ornaments on trees. The time when we celebrate this holy night that Jesus was born. Many of us try to create an atmosphere of hope and joy we can gaze at when the lights are dim. And the room is only lit by the twinkle of the lights in our trees.

But these things are not ours to create. I was reminded when I was decorating trees last week, I was doing more than just decorating trees. I was really preparing what would be a reflection of the Light of the world. That the light (spoken into existence by God) broke through the darkness, as it always would.