Okay, I will admit it, I am a bit of a nut about Christmas. I want to start playing Christmas carols before Thanksgiving, I want to put the tree up on the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Most of all, I want to start putting up the lights. I don’t want the ten thousand lights and everything tuned to music so that they flicker on cue. I want lots of lights tastefully done.
As a child, because of allergies to some kinds of evergreens, we had the quintessential aluminum Christmas tree with a color wheel. What can I say, it was the sixties. As false as that was, I still loved watching the lights change. Nowadays, I line the fences, sidewalks, driveway and the house with lights. I simply love that warm, welcoming glow that the lights give. I want it always to look like an invitation to come visit, not to drive by and just look.
I don’t stop with Christmas though. The sidewalk up to the front porch has lights along it. There are solar lights along the fence and the deck has lights to, again, create that warm inviting glow. I even like to have a fire pit so that the light is there to enjoy.
Christ said, “I am the light of the world” and that is why I think I love the lights so much. That warm and inviting glow of the lights speaks of His presence. I also believe that each day on the Christian journey, we are absorbing more of his light. That is how the idea of not hiding you light under a “bushel” makes sense. We cannot just absorb the light that Christ gives us on the path, we have to let it out.
We are to become him, become the Light ourselves. And as we are doing that, we cannot hide it, we must let it shine. Are some lights brighter than others? Of course they are. But each is still a light. The light within us all is the living Creator of the Universe. And, all that the Creator desires of us is to let the light grow and let it out. We are called to let that light out and we do that by learning simply to be the Light.
Shine on my friends,shine on.
TMM