He Entered the Dark to Bring Us Light

Today we observe the shortest light of day and the longest dark of night. For many years, I didn’t count the winter solstice as a part of my Advent tradition, but about ten years ago I was introduced to the solstice’s place in the church calendar with Blue Christmas. In the midst of preparing our hearts for Christ’s birth, Blue Christmas is a time to reflect and lament the hurt and brokenness that exists in the world, and acknowledge that our God hears and sees us calling out to Him from our deepest needs. On this side of the Nativity story we know God’s answer comes (past, present, and future) in the form of His Son, prophesied to be the great Light in the Darkness.

Author and speaker Annie B. Downs has a quote that I’ve seen online multiple times this week. She says,
“I (almost) always come limping into Advent, desperate for light, but almost too tired to look for it. Then I remember: the Light came looking for me and that’s the whole point.”

During the first Christmas of the pandemic my family decided to social distance and not spend the holiday together in the same city. It was weird and lonely. And so I took a mason jar and filled it with candle stubs from old Advent wreaths. I kept the jar with me all day and into the night. And it made the day feel less dark.

What power light holds! It's no surprise our holiday decorations focus so much on light. They pierce the darkness of winter like they have a story to tell.

We don’t often think about how the star over Bethlehem appeared to anyone else in the Nativity story. Imagine Mary and Joseph’s surprise when their dreary dwelling was suddenly cast in a beam of light. They were in the dark—both literally and spiritually—until Jesus was born and entered the dark. Scripture doesn’t give us an exact time when the star appeared, but if the wise men were able to say to King Herod, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2), then it must have been as soon as Jesus let out His first cry into earthly air. The star’s light became a herald for the Light.

I also see this as a bookmark to the darkness that occurred when Jesus hung on the cross, preparing to breathe His last breath. If the Creator would direct the heavens to showcase a brilliant star at Jesus’ birth, why would He not respond in kind at the devastation of His Son’s death. The same Mary who treasured these things in her heart, present at both her son’s birth and death, probably noticed this too.

How much more noticeable the light when it is surrounded by darkness. How much more debilitating the dark when it is devoid of light.

The God who hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky is the same God who sees us in our pain and own personal darkness. He knows that we need more than just words to bring us hope. And so He uses all of creation to point us to Him.

There is a stanza in the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel that says:

O come, thou Day-Spring, come and cheer,
Our Spirits by thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Jesus Himself is our day-spring, or sunrise, in modern terms, an echo of Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming light:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
(Isaiah 9:2)

Desiring God writer Jon Bloom reflects on this stanza of the hymn and Jesus’ role as the approaching dawn in his article, He Came to a World in Darkness. Bloom says,

“These luminous words of hope were first spoken 2,700 years ago to a fractured Hebrew people who were watching with anguish as a fearful night fell upon them. It looked as though Israel’s lamp would be forever extinguished. But the prophet foresaw that, beyond this fearful night, a great dawn was coming.

. . . Jesus came into the world as light and became the light of the world. And his light shone in our darkness. But he did more than shine. He set in motion the eternal destruction of our darkness by taking it upon himself. . . and His healing rays have been spreading throughout the world ever since.”

As soon as sin entered the Garden of Eden, we became a people walking in darkness. May we let this long night help that to soak in. From that point onward, we needed a Savior. Someone to not only show us the Light, but actually extinguish the dark. At the first Advent we received the one who would grow up to say: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). But we are waiting for a second Advent: a time when Christ will come again to defeat death and darkness forever.

Until that day, we have a Creator who allows us to experience darkness. Without it, we would have no need for light; we would not fight for truth and justice and hope. But we are not alone in this dark. In the most radical intersection of all, we have a God who came down in human form to show us the way.

I love author Kaitlyn Bouchillon’s poetic reflection on this darkness and light. I will end with this:

“. . . The night will seem to swallow everything in a matter of hours, but we’re inching toward the promise, and in His kindness, God saw fit to enter the dark and start the clock.

For now, loss lingers . . . but one day, the day will go on forever. One day, night will be no more (Revelation 22:5). One day, all will be forever bright. But for now, as we limp through the dark, may we remember:

The countdown is on. The clock is ticking. Closer, closer, closer. Always, Light is pushing back and coming for us. And today, on the very darkest day as night stretches as far as it can go, the earth joins in with a declaration spread across creation:

From here on out, the light gets shorter. From here on out, it only gets brighter. No matter how deep the darkness, Hope has something to say. Even now, dawn is on the way.

Next week we’ll celebrate the Light of the world that pierced the night, the One who still wakes the day and paints the sky, the One who couldn’t stand to do anything other than come closer, closer, closer.”

This is Emmanuel. God with us.