Sunday, December 4, 2011

let there be light

Today I discovered my new favorite Christmas song of. all. time.  Buy the song on iTunes and/or check out these lyrics by Ross Byrd of High Street Hymns (in Charlottesville!):

One Winter's Night
If only that which is assumed could ever be redeemed
Then come to us within a womb; be born and wash out feet
And not our feet alone we pray but everything we know
That thou O Love would come and stay and all our sorrows go

Yet thou will not be welcomed here, still Love please come and be
Our refuge, wipe away our tears though we will murder thee
But darkness only turns to day if You become the night
And we on You our darkness lay that it be swallowed in light

The gods we trusted and became will find no solace here
Beside his creatures low and lame the Son of God appears
A thousand years of "progress" past, a million hearts beguiled
Now Love alone will reign and last within one little child

O Love, make a way, come find us
Search the darkness, light the way, come and guide us Home
Oh the sunrise burns the night away
Find us, find us
Blessed One, born today, come and find us
Search the darkness, light the way, come and guide us Home
One winter's night begins eternal summer morn
If only You are born


Those words have ruined me for cheesy Christmas music.  Beautiful.  I listened to this song on repeat yesterday--no less than 25 times--and then found myself in tears throughout the day

when the single woman on a TV drama underwent in vitro while a sick little boy lay in a hospital bed without parents

when a friend told me about a marriage that is failing

when I read about women who are still enslaved in brothels

And it just struck me again and again how much we need this LIGHT that has come!

to dispel our darkness...

 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8:12

to come and find us..
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you. 
Psalm 139:11-12


to put His light in us...
“I will keep you and will make you
   to be a covenant for the people
   and a light for the Gentiles,
7 to open eyes that are blind,
   to free captives from prison
   and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."
Isaiah 42:6-7

You are the light of the world.
Matthew 5:18

The power of the Incarnation is that in Jesus, the Kingdom of Light breaks in and dispels the darkness of broken humanity. 

As Simon Tugwell has put it, "He has followed us into our own darkness."

In Jesus, we have hope that things will not always be as they are, that as C.S. Lewis so masterfully wrote, it will not be "always winter and never Christmas."  That all things will be set right when this Heavenly King returns, once and for all.  That all of our longing is stirring up anticipation for Him.  That the light of the Son continues to shine in us, His Church, even as we wait.

"One winter's night begins eternal summer morn, if only You are born"--what a thought!
 
You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.
Psalm 18:28

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