2 December Into the darkness of this world
(StF 173)
Darkness doesn’t often have a good press – it tends to be associated with ignorance, evil, fear, and all sorts of other negative states and emotions. And yet darkness is very much part of God’s creation, given a name, ‘night’, given a role, and without darkness we would not see the amazing array of stars, or the shimmering beauty of the moon, silvering the branches of trees and casting mysterious shadows. Yet it only takes the striking of a match, the flame of a candle, to banish darkness from its small circle of light.
It was into the darkness that Jesus came, and still comes, the Light of Life, the Light of Love, a light so bright, so powerful that, as John tells us in his Gospel, ‘the darkness did not overcome it’. A light to shine into our hearts ‘to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ (2 Corinthians 4 v.6).
So come, Lord Jesus, come!
Liz Stuart
Lord Jesus,
at this darkest time of the year
we long for the light of your coming,
that love and hope may be born anew in us. Amen