Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/1056515
30 "IN HIM WAS LIFE, AND THAT LIFE WAS THE LIGHT OF ALL MANKIND. THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS, AND THE DARKNESS HAS NOT OVERCOME IT. - JOHN 1:4-5 Mark Young, PhD President Let There Be Light I 'm a scaredy-cat in the dark. Many of us are. In darkness a place as familiar as our own home loses its sense of security. Sounds are magnified. Shapes and shadows replace the sharp contours of the objects around us. And our imaginations run wild. Darkness breeds fear. As Yann Martel puts it in his book Life of Pi, fear is "a wordless darkness." God's very first words in the book of Genesis are, "Let there be light" (1:3). ey are spoken over a lifeless void smothered in darkness. ere can be no life without light. So God speaks light into existence and the possibility of life emerges from that dark, lifeless chaos. roughout the Old Testament darkness is used metaphorically for evil and death. Light, on the other hand, represents goodness and life. e birth of Jesus Christ is God saying once again, "Let there be light." Jesus enters into a lifeless spiritual darkness and brings life and light. e Apostle John put it this way: "In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. e light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:4–5). Darkness flees before light and cannot extinguish it. In the birth of Jesus, death and evil flee from His life-giving presence, and they cannot stop His life-giving mission. Light makes it possible to see what's real while darkness distorts and deceives. Light makes it possible to know the truth and to embrace it while darkness masks the truth and keeps us from finding our way. When Jesus came into the world, He made God known to us so that we can embrace Him and find our way into His family (John 1:9–12). at's why the One who said, "I am the light of the world" is "the way and the truth and the life" through whom we may come to the Father. Each morning as the dawn breaks and the sun's light pushes back the darkness of night, we are given a vivid reminder of the coming of the Son of God into a spiritually dark and lifeless void. is Christmas morning, and perhaps every morning, let's begin the day with the simple refrain, "Let there be light." And let's remember the One who is the "light of the world." 25 December