When I was a senior in high school, I remember going to Homecoming at my high school with a member of our youth group. She loved to dance, and I loved dance, so we had a great time. After the dance ended, she wasn’t expected home for a little while, and the stars were beautiful, so we decided to park the car at my house, and walk in our neighborhood which didn’t have street lights…did I say the stars were really beautiful that night? So we pulled up to my house, and all the outside lights were on! I was a little irritated with all the light—was this really necessary?—so I quick ran inside to turn them off—I mean, really…I was 18 after all—and there’s my dad waiting up for me. It was impossible to be irritated with the man who was clearly tired, but doing this for me, so I told him that we were going for a walk, and that he could go to bed if he wanted. In some ways, many of us approach God a little like I approached my dad that night. We are busy out in the world, having a good time, and every so often, we check in at the church and are surprised to see that God has left the light on for us. We are adults, and we are quite good at managing our affairs, and maybe sometimes, we are not so keen for God to know everything we’ve been up to, so we might be surprised—perhaps a little irritated that God has been waiting up for us. “It’s ok, God! You don’t have to care what’s going on in my life. You can go to bed if you want.”

A few years later, I learned something more about God’s light, but not in a way I expected. As a college student, I worked at a wilderness camp in NH, just north and east of Wolfeboro. It was pretty dark out there, but the stars were so bright, that once my eyes got used to it, I could walk the quarter mile from the main lodge to my tent even at night without a problem. But one night it was pouring down rain, and I forgot my flashlight. While I could find the road when the lightning went off, the rest of the time, it was dark as pitch. Still, I could kind of feel my way towards my tent…if I hit any bushes, I was getting off the road. It was taking a long time to get to the side-road that led to my tent, and I was starting to get worried that I had gone past the turn off, when a bright beam appeared off to my right. It was my co-counselor coming up the side-road with a flashlight! I was so relieved! For thousands of years, humanity has been caught in the storms of life, sometimes drenched and cold, sometimes befuddled by the darkness. The darkness is not new to us—violence, oppression, loneliness, addiction, self-loathing, greed, hatred—but at just the right moment, in the middle of the storm, God made a light to shine. Ed Robb writes, “Two thousand years ago, God knew that his children were not going to win their battle against the darkness on their own, so God “Struck a match”—creating a flame that would ignite the world and the hearts of humankind.”[1] Jesus is that match, and His bright beam is still coming towards us, because God knows that we need a guide through the storm.

Which brings us back to my dad waiting up for me with all the lights on. This fall, when Cynthia had COVID, I stayed a few nights with Dad and Sue, and when I got there the first night, sure enough—the lights were all on and my dad was waiting up for me. I realized Dad doing that had nothing to do with how old I was or how responsible I was—Dad was going to leave the light on and be waiting up for me, because he loved me and that’s who he is In a sense, God always leaves the light on for us because He loves us and that’s how God rolls. God is always waiting up for us, hoping the light of Christ, the light of Christmas, will help us find our way home. But Jesus didn’t come to just leave the light on for us, because God is not just waiting for us to come home…Jesus is God heading out into the storm with a flashlight! How amazing to think of Christmas as God coming out into the darkness and storm with a light to look for us!

Of course, what’s even more amazing, is that once Jesus, the Light of the World, has found us in the storm, the Light of His Love begins to shine in us, and Jesus enables us to carry the light of His love into the storms of the world. How do you and I feel about that? Maybe we don’t feel like we could or should be ones to carry the light of Jesus’ love into the world. But as Nelson Mandela put it,

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so
that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other
people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

…

“Light and life, to all He brings,

Ris’n with healing in His wings

Hark! The herald Angels sing,

“Glory to the newborn King.”

[1]Ibid, 46