Scripture Reference: Luke 1:67-69, 78-79
The birth of Jesus is spoken of as “the Dayspring from on high.” This is pure poetry. There is nothing more beautiful in the entire Bible. It is beauty throbbing with reality.
First Light
So Christmas can be spoken of as “the Dayspring from on high.”
“The Dayspring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” A light from above has shown into the darkness of our night to give us peace.
Dayspring from on high. What do these beautiful words mean? The springs of day are on high. The dawn breaks from the heavens. The morning comes from eastern skies. The light comes from beyond us.
People do not cause the dawn. They can light a candle but not the eastern sky. They can light their houses, even their cities, but not their earth. They can break the chill of the early morning where they are, but they cannot lift the chilly, clammy mist from the mountains. They can build a fire by which to warm their hands, but they can’t warm their earth, nor thaw the freeze of winter, nor bring the spring.
Christmas is not about people lighting candles, nor framing their windows and doors with light, nor passing torches from hand to hand and from generation to generation. Christmas is not something done by people but something done for people. It is not our achieving but God’s doing.
Christmas is not essentially about our making gifts. Our generosity, however, at this season warms our own hearts as well as the heart of our world. It is about God’s love and generosity and that He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to it.
If Christmas is like a dawn, it is little wonder that the motif of light is found in the Christmas stories.
In Matthew’s story the wise men followed the light of a strange star. “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him,” they asked upon their arriving in Jerusalem (Matthew 2:2). They followed the light from the heavens. “And behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was” (Matthew 2:9).
In Luke’s story the announcement of the birth of the Christ child was made to lowly shepherds about whom “the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:9). You have seen this pictorially represented when the shepherds were dazzled and blinded by light.
John doesn’t tell a story about the birth of Jesus. He begins with the preexistent Christ and then rushes to tell a secret: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5).
Light is such an appropriate symbol for Christmas. Christmas, like light, makes possible a greater vision and gives warmth, life, and hope.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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