Christmas: Light and Life

Here we are once again. It's the end of 2018. It's Christmas time. And one of the things that is so basic to this season is the idea of story. The tagline for these podcasts is stories to make sense of it all. Well, there's one story that is the sort of mother of all stories. And it starts 700 years, maybe more than that, but at least 700 years before the time of Christ. The prophet Isaiah said it this way, the people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, the light has dawned. One of my favorite little books around Christmas time is written by Tim Keller, who pastors in New York City. He's a prolific author, good thinker, and it's called Hidden Christmas, the surprising truth behind the birth of Christ. This is how he begins chapter 1. One of the first indications of the Christmas season is the appearance of lights. Lights on trees, candles in windows, radiance everywhere. The Christmas lights of New York City delight even blase residents. Everything seems to be wrapped in millions and millions of stars. This is appropriate because December 25th follows the darkest time of the year in the Mediterranean world in Europe where Christmas celebrations took shape. But the lights are not just decorative, they are symbolic. He goes on to say no matter what you want to do in a room. And in this passage, he's illustrating the difference between darkness and light. No matter what you want to do in a room, you have to first turn on the light or you can't see to do anything. Christmas contains many spiritual truths, but it will be hard to grasp the others unless we grasp this one first, that is that the world is a dark place and we will never find our way or see reality unless Jesus is our light. Matthew quoting Isaiah 9.1 and 2 tells us the people living in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of the shadow of death, the light has dawned and then perhaps my favorite text around the Christmas season. John says about Jesus, the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. Darkness, Tim Keller goes on to say, can be a physical darkness or it can be metaphorical darkness. Darkness that comes because of ignorance or darkness that comes because of superstition or that sort of thing. It's hard to think of another time in the year. I think there is no other time when people use lights to express what they feel or think or dream about. So you put lights on your houses, you put lights on reindeer out on the lawn, you put lights on a tree, you put lights on hats, you have lights flashing in sweaters, is unbelievable. The unique piece about this is that the very first thing that God in the Holy Scriptures has recorded as saying is let there be light and therein lies a story. Those of you who know me, you've heard me tell this story perhaps many times but it's one of my favorite stories that gave me insight into I think not only what God thinks but who he is and how he dreams. It was around 1970, the University of Illinois back in Champaign, Urbana where I met a professor. His name was Howard Momstedt and his specialty as an analytical chemist was the use of light for scientific measurement. As we became friends and by that the idea of using light for scientific measurement is that things that are small or things that are fast can best be measured by light and I'll go on to explain that a bit. So Howard and I are writing in the car one day and I said, how come? Why do you think that the first thing God says in Scripture is let there be light and he just looked at me very kindly. His look didn't say boy, talk about dumbness, both has it, it didn't say that he was very kind. He just said, well light is one of the foundations of the universe and he went on to explain Einstein's theory of relativity, energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light and he said Einstein's theory has as its constant light. He went on to say that the wavelength how light is measured is the basis for how we measure distance. So if you're driving down a road listening to this podcast and you look over to the side there's some construction going on and somebody is using a transit that is that that range finder if you will they used to build roads. These days they use laser transit because light the wavelength is the most precise measurement for distance. He went on to say that every element in the physical universe and you know when we were in high school chemistry class we had the chart of elements. So you have sodium and chloride and silver and copper and all of these acronyms these these abbreviations. Every element in the physical universe absorbs a fluorescence light at a particular rate and it's identified that way. So when you go to have blood drawn at the hospital these days it used to be they had to mix it with stuff reagents and put it in a centrifuge and distill stuff out or precipitate stuff. I mean it goes I'm not a scientist but you had to do all that quite a long process. Today by the use of lasers you can see what components you have in your blood instantly whether you have too much phosphorus or not enough magnesium all of that just because light is absorbed or fluoresced by every element that way. If you bombard the element cadmium with light it emits according to my friend Howard what is called something called the cadmium red line which I understand became the basis for the atomic clock. So when God says let there be light or Isaiah reflects on light coming into darkness he's saying mouthful how's that for the understatement of the century here's a here is God saying let there be light and he's saying let me in just a few words put the universe and time and space all in one place and light can do all those things and my question about this statement is do you think God knew I think he knew so time and space are captured and let there be light light is the basis for physical life itself anyone who's listening to this and grew up on a ranch or a farm or has a garden or eight carrots this week you need to understand that photosynthesis which is that process by which plants grow that's a light thing light is what makes the food chain work so it grows grass cows eat grass or corn we eat out etc the our whole existence is based in this little statement let there be light if you're an artist I'm not I'm not an art connoisseur but I I think I I know what I like in painting Ruth my wife really likes those those impressionists and how they used color I like landscapes I also like pictures of the faces of people but I think it was dobbler who was a painter that said color is suffering and structured light so when you see a rainbow or as we used to say for tests in junior high Roy G bib red orange yellow blue indigo violet excuse me red orange yellow green blue indigo violet I just got a bee on that test and said of an A what I'm looking at is light in its spectrum in the visible spectrum and you see it because if you're looking at rain in the distance and the sun is behind you at a 43 degree angle it it creates that effect right but visible light is a very very small portion of all the light there is if you were to google electromagnetic spectrum this is what you'll see you'll see in the towards the center of the light spectrum all those colors we think about when we think about but then there's the invisible light if you go to the left my way of looking at the spectrum you get ultraviolet light ultraviolet rays you get x-rays and down at the far end you get gamma rays if you go the other direction you get infrared rays you get radar FM radio television shortwave and AM radio this this whole thing from from media or entertainment to medicine is captured by the idea let there be light because if you go to the high end of that spectrum to the right what you get is doctor Phil or NCIS or whatever it is you watch on television if you go the other way you get down to gamma knife brain surgery do you think do you think God knew when he said let there be light that that's what it was about it's interesting because most light is not visible to the naked eye it's like the kingdom of God it's mostly invisible it's also the basis for technology take out your cell phone look at it the reason that works is because of light you go to the grocery store and check your bags the checkout counter and they scan it scan the barcode that's light at work you're excited to get home you go a little too fast in the kindly police officer pulls you over and says it's in a bit of a rush there it was radar that's light they got you pulled over you microwave something in the oven light again you say come on everything can't be connected to light I'm not saying it is I think God says it is when he says let there be light so my question is do you think God knew oh yeah I think he knew when you see a movie when you watch TV when you listen to the radio when you take a cell call when you when you ping things off satellites to get text messages to the other side of the world I think he knew what light allows is sight and perspective it allows us perception it allows us to judge distances to identify people and things so without light there is no life there's no color there's no real perspective and when you read the scriptures God is light when John records in the light shined in the darkness we need to understand that that's his signature he signs in it creation that way after the flood he gives the rainbow in the tabernacle there's the chicana the glory of God and the Israelites were in the desert with a pillar of cloud by day with that bright Egyptian sun reflecting off that or a pillar of fire by night God's signature and over Bethlehem a star shines showing us the where and the who and on the road to Damascus Paul literally or Saul going out to kill people who believe in the light is knocked down by it if you will and when you get to the end of all of the scriptures it says in that place in that city there will be no need for the son of the moon because the lamb himself is the light you say enough already well I don't think we can get enough of light but I just say this one other thing I walked into my friend Howard's lab one day and I said Howard what are you doing over there and of course this is this is almost 50 years ago he said oh we're we are using a ruby laser to track the positive and negative ions across the kidneys of frogs and I chuckled and said well of course you are like I have no idea what that means but the key to that was the ruby laser as I sit recording this in my in my library in my house I've got incandescent lights shining down from can lights in the ceilings and I actually have a couple of different colors of those one is warm a couple of more a little more cool if you will I've got light coming in from the outside which is natural light and so light is ripping through here at 186 thousand miles per second I mean it's just just going crazy in here and when you have a laser what it does is it takes all of those rays that are bouncing crazy ways and lines them up it sinks them up when scripture says in Psalms how precious is it when brothers slash sisters dwell together in harmony it illustrates the power of light because when the wavelengths are matched or harmonized it becomes a laser and today lasers are used for healing things they can go in and destroy blood clots in the vitrius humor of your eye I mean just all kinds of things that lasers can be used for and it's when light is lined up if you will so when we are lined up together when we're pointed in the same direction when we're believing in this Jesus powerful things can happen when Jesus looks at some of his disciples and says you are the light of the world unbelievable statement unbelievable statement I've often wondered when it says were two or three are gathered in harmony in symphony the verb there means in symphony it's amazing what can happen so at this season of the lights whether you see them on a Christmas tree whether you see them on the on the roof line of a house whether you see them on somebody's funny hat I hope that it it takes you back to where light comes from to who he is that light of the world he's the light that shines in darkness he destroys ignorance as he destroys superstitions he brings growth and life and color and perspective and dimension I like from chapter one of the hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller what he says and this actually is found on the dust jacket I'm just going to read a piece of it Christmas therefore is the most unsentimental realistic way of looking at life it does not say cheer up if we all pull together we can make the world a better place Bible never councils in difference to the forces of darkness only resistance but it supports no illusions that we can defeat them it doesn't agree with the pessimists who say there's only a certain kind of future the message of Jesus is instead things really are this bad and you can't heal or save them yourselves things really are this dark nevertheless there is hope the Christmas message is that on those living in the land of shadow a light has dawned notice that it doesn't say from the world a light has sprung but upon the world a light has dawned it's come from the outside there is a light outside of this world and Jesus has come from it to save us he brings it to us his presence is that light let me just wrap it up this way this Christmas podcast years ago when I worked and walked on capital hill just walking with individuals encouraging them toward or into Jesus I had this thought how do you explain this good news of Jesus coming into the world to bring us light and hope and dimension and all of that meaning and this idea of place came to be because when you read the Christmas story it's about place it went to Bethlehem they went to a stable they went to a manger that the star came from the people came from the east it's all about places really geography and people and I just had this thought and I framed it this way here's here's what I what I sense I sort of hear the Lord saying go here's the deal I'll leave my place I'll come to your place I'll take your place then we'll go to my place I think that's where light comes full circle this Christmas not only wish for you the best I pray for you the best and for you to take a deep dive into the light of that person whose name is Jesus the Christ God bless you