A Week of Christmas, Day 5: Christ Came to Give Light

Luke 1:78b-79a.. "...whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death..."

Sunrise on Lake Geneva, taken from Edgewater Park In Williams Bay

Aren't sunrises beautiful? Each morning, they break through the darkness of night and shine glorious colors into the new day. Surely sunrises are one of the most beautiful things in all of God's creation. Not only this, but they give us a great picture of Christ in this great advent season. Let us look at Christ as the sunrise this morning.

In Luke 1:78, Jesus is in fact directly spoken as a "sunrise" that will "visit us from on high to give light." Isn't that so cool? I don't know about you, but picturing Christ as a "sunrise" is a pretty cool analogy. But as we stop for a moment this morning to consider what that really means, we have to note that the entire purpose of a sunrise is to get rid of the darkness. Likewise, Christ came to get rid of the darkness as well. The world was full of people who were in "darkness" and "the shadow of death," but Christ came to change that by giving light.

The great story of our salvation is that Christ brought light to us, that is, those who were in darkness. John 8:12 puts it this way: "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.'" Light in a biblical context is often synonymous with life, while darkness is often synonymous with death. In the great story of the Gospel, Christ is the light of life that came to destory the darkness of death. Even in this great Christmas season, we can look on this light even in the picture of a sunrise and see that Christ is breaking through the darkness--he is breaking through our darkness.

So, when's the last time you saw a sunrise? What if the next time you see a sunrise, you remembered the picture of Christ in the advent season? What if we all took to heart that Christ in this great Christmas season did in fact come to give light even as he broke through the greatest of darkness? Even though he was a baby in a manger, he was still the light of the world. Praise the Lord that the sunrise has come to visit us on high, to give light to us even though we lived in darkness.