Advent-Christmastide 2015
Advent/Christmastide 2015-2016 Unless otherwise noted, all I John: Darkness & Light Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. I John 1:5 In elementary school, we learn that ordinary light can be split up into many colors (seven, to be exact). All of these colors combine wonderfully to give us the full spectrum light we experience each day in the rays of the sun. Full spectrum light is full, complex, and rich. It brings life and flourishing everywhere it travels. Take it away, and the world would eventually be enshrouded in death. Each year as fall turns into winter and the days get progressively shorter, many of us begin to experience the toll that darkness takes upon us. Our mood sinks and we can find it harder to go about the daily tasks of life. We begin to long for the return of the healing light of the sun. Certain types of artificial light try to mimic what the sun can do, but they are, in the end, cheap and garish substitutes for the real thing. The biblical narrative tells a story of a world that was enveloped in darkness―a darkness of sin, prideful autonomy, and foolish efforts to create our own light. And, into this great darkness, God―the true Light―has come. Jesus is the Light that has come into our darkness. His light is full, complex and rich.
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