Today we celebrate the joyous holiday of Christmas, of Jesus’ 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, a vivid image that helps us understand the circumstances of his birth in the manger in Bethlehem. Today, we hear from the beginning of the Gospel of John, where the images are more openly theological and poetic in nature, particularly the image of light.
For the people of the ancient Mediterranean world, light and darkness were two very separate realities. Darkness did not mean 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.
Light is associated with life in John’s Gospel. Jesus comes to the world as light and life. John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus is the word in whom all living things came 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 it ourselves.
We use the symbolism of light 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 to keep the light of Christ alive in the life of the child that was just baptized.
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 right on the banks of a huge river. It had no electricity at all. On Christmas eve, the villagers spent the whole night in the church, signing hymns to the sounds of the maracas and drums. I remember sitting in the church in the late night hours in the hot and humid tropical climate on Christmas eve, with the only light present coming from a few candles. The night felt so immense and so dark. Yet, I felt the light of Christ in the joy of the people and in the light coming from those few candles.
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 make so many other things in our lives the light that we focus on to the exclusion of our faith: our work, our personal ambitions, our national identity, and our desires for success or material possessions. Those lights can outshine our Catholic faith & Jesus the light of the world.
As part of our Church's faith, we believe in the Word of God, the Logos, the Word that created the world and came to earth as the baby Jesus as a light to our world. This truth about Jesus can seem so distant from the reality of our world, especially now with secular message that is taking over our society. The violence, darkness, and chaos of our world can seem overwhelming. With all we witness in our daily lives, it may seem like the light of God and the light of Truth are being put out. We need that light from God to serve as our compass – to lead us and guide us.
It is important that we, as believers, as Catholics, strongly reaffirm with our lives the salvation that comes with the birth of Christ 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 each day in order to continue to follow the Light of Christ and to be that light to others.
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