Starvation for Light

"The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." Matthew 4:16

"The starvation for light became very painful. He found himself thinking about light as a hungry man thinks about food - picturing April hillsides with milky clouds racing over them in blue skies or quiet circles of lamp - light on tables pleasantly littered with books and pipes. By a curious confusion of mind he found it impossible not to imagine that the slope he walked on was not merely dark, but black in its own right, as if with soot. He felt that his feet and hands must be blackened by touching it. Whenever he pictured himself arriving at any light, he also pictured that light revealing a world of soot all around him." C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

It is hard to imagine hungering for light. But when we lived in Ireland for a brief time we learned a bit of what it means to long for the light. Ireland is so far north that during the summer months it stays light from very early in the morning until past ten o'clock at night. Once we adjusted to having so many hours of daylight, it was a de-light-ful experience. But the autumn months leading up to the shortest day of the year, December 21, were difficult to handle. One could feel the gloom settling in on the soul.

The years that the Jews waited for the appearance of the Messiah must have been something like our autumn months in Ireland; the darkness must have made them hunger for the light. And now, to our great joy, we live in spiritual springtime and summer, for the Messiah has come.

To be sure, the light of Jesus the Messiah, reveals the blackness of sin in our lives. There is still a lot of cleaning up to do. But living in the light is better than living in the darkness.

Advent reminds us that we are now waiting for the light of the Messiah to dawn once more when Jesus returns to set up his eternal kingdom, bringing heaven to earth (Revelation 21:2). As we await the dawn of that new age we need to prepare by allowing the Holy Spirit to cleanse our lives of the soot of sin, by announcing the coming of the King, and by living out his kingdom values in these last hours before the new dawn.

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Will Vaus

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