When I was a little girl, my grandparents had a double wide over on the lake between Soddy Daisy and Sale Creek. My family of four or the whole extended family would gather there in the summertime. We would spend the day swimming or out on a canoe, playing cards and eating tomato sandwiches. At night, we cousins would pack into the room of bunk beds and double beds like sardines. My spot was always on the bottom bunk, and every night I would lay there listening to frogs and cicadas, looking through the crack in the cotton curtains, watching the light from the marina reflecting off of the water. The creaky mattress with the unfamiliar sounds of snoring and breathing from that pack of cousins could have been bad sleep or even bad dream material for a child, but the light coming in shimmering off of the water let a glow into the space that felt safe and right.
We could probably all think of at least one (maybe a few) stories or snapshots of our lives when literal light shone into the darkness. There’s a reason the writer of John’s gospel used this universal image for Jesus, why Jesus went on in the gospels to talk about himself as the light. We know the comfort of light in dark places, the salvation of a lead of light through a dark journey, or the safety of seeing and being seen in a glowing circle through darkness.
The light of Christ is with us always, and particularly today, on the feast of the Epiphany. This is the day the church has historically celebrated as the arrival of the magi in Matthew 2, those strangers who sought the new king by the light of the star.
God’s light in Jesus shines out the hope and guidance and safety we need. We see God’s light rippling into the dark and unfamiliar places, the discomforts and struggles and worries and woundedness of the world.
Of course the light doesn’t extinguish all the darkness. The light is shining into the darkness, it doesn’t banish every shadow. After all, the hope of life comes to us vulnerable and ordinary, small and powerless. The light of God arrives in the milk blistered lips and squirmy confusion of a newborn. Can he fix everything? No. Blast away the darkness like a fluorescent light? No.
Christ comes to meet us, small and humble. He comes to walk with us, to teach us and hear us and tell us stories and visions of healing. It shines and illuminates like a lamp, a candle, a star, a reflection from far away. That little bundle of light, that little glow is enough. The darkness cannot overcome it.