Today we celebrate Christmas Day as we commemorate Christ’s birth into our world. Last night, at Christmas eve mass, we heard a reading from the Gospel of Luke that described Jesus’ birth in a humble manger in Bethlehem. Today, we hear from the beginning of John’s Gospel, with images are more directly poetic and theological in nature, particularly the image of light.
For the people of the ancient Mediterranean world, light and darkness were two separate realities. Darkness did not signify the absence of light, but rather the presence of darkness, just as light meant the presence of light. Just as light can push out the presence of darkness, darkness can push out light.
The image of light is associated with life in John’s Gospel in a special way. Jesus comes to the world as both light and life. John tells us that Jesus is the word of God in whom all living things come into being. Since we all have light as living beings, light and life go hand in hand. Light and life have their origin in God’s created work. As created beings, we can hand down this light to others, but we can’t create God’s light ourselves.
We use the symbolism of light in a special way in the Sacrament of Baptism. We receive the light of Christ in our lives when we are baptized. In the Sacrament of Baptism, the godparents light a candle for the baptized child from the paschal candle that represents Christ. They are told to keep the light of Christ alive in the life of the child that was just received the sacrament of baptism.
There are times in our lives when the darkness can overwhelm us. I remember one Christmas that I spent in Ecuador in small village of San Francisco de Onzole in the middle of the rainforest jungle. The village was located on the banks of a large river. This village had no electricity at all. On Christmas eve, the villagers spent the whole night in the church, singing Christmas carols in Spanish to the sounds of maracas and drums. We sat in the church in the late night hours in the hot humid tropical climate on Christmas eve, with the only light present coming from a few candles in the middle of the church.The night felt immense and dark, but I felt the light of Christ in the joy of the people and in the light coming from the candle
Things can come out of the darkness of the world and hit us unexpectedly, taking our focus off Jesus and off our faith in him. The Roman philosopher Cicero, born a century before Jesus, described the Roman Empire as “a light to the whole world.” We can focus on the light in other things, taking the focus off our faith. We can focus on our work, our personal ambitions, our national identity, success or material possessions. Those lights can outshine our Catholic faith and the light of Jesus in the world.
As part of our Church's faith, we believe in the Word of God that created the world and that came to earth as the baby Jesus as a light to our world. This truth that Jesus brings can seem very distant from our daily reality, especially now with secular message that is taking over our society. The violence, darkness, and chaos of our world can overwhelm us. With all we witness in our daily lives, it may seem like the light of God and the light of truth are being drowned out. We need God’s light to serve as our compass, to lead us and guide us.
It is important that we as Catholics strongly reaffirm with our lives the salvation that comes with Christ’s birth as a light in our world. In the humble manger in Bethlehem, this light that now illuminates our lives was made manifest to the world. Christ as a light is the way that leads to the fullness of our humanity as it is revealed to us. It would be beneficial for all of us this Christmas season to ask ourselves how Jesus functions as a light in our own lives and what we can do in order to follow the light of Christ and to be that light to others.
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