Life and Light

My favourite verse of my favourite carol goes like this:

Hail the heav’nly Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings,
Ris’n with healing in His wings.
Mild He lays His glory by,
Born that man no more may die.
Born to raise the sons of earth,
Born to give them second birth.

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King;

The third stanza of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” speaks of Prince who embodies peace and shines with righteousness – it speaks of glorious King, one of whom angels will sing.

And yet, it also speaks of one who lays this glory aside – one who is born to mankind and for the sake of mankind. Born to bring death itself to and end. Born so that His righteousness and peace could bring light and life to us.

No wonder the angels sing to mankind of it!

My favourite Christmas reading expands on this;

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

(John Chapter 1)

The angels aren’t just singing of His glory because of things that He will do - they sing of His glory because of the things He has already done!

As John explains, He was with God for all eternity, in fact He is God for all eternity – He was with God in the beginning. Jesus is not any ordinary baby born to us. He will not simply become special through the things that he does. His birth is a unique gift to humanity. The first present and the first Christmas is the gift of God himself. So this means, as John writes and the carol reminds, “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind”

As our own Queen has said;

God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive.

I often hear the cynic claim that we have no evidence that Jesus was born on the 25th Dec; that Jesus was not born in the Winter time at all. And there may be truth in this.

Yet, because we celebrate Christmas in December – because we hold our traditional festivities now, in the middle of the long winter nights, light becomes an important theme. With lights, we’ll decorate our streets, our houses and our trees. We sing of Christmas in churches lit by candles. We gather with family in homes warmed by an open fire. Why? We’ll it is just because it’s cold and dark this time of year.

But maybe it’s to point to us to real meaning of Christmas. Maybe it’s to point to the light and life that is found in Jesus Christ.

Whether it is winter or not, we all know that the world can be cold and dark – but it is into this world, that we are given Jesus – the offer of light and life.

So John can continue in his introduction;

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

So, as Her Majesty concludes,

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord.

I wish you all a very happy Christmas.