When I was in college, I was maybe not the most focused student. There was far too much fun stuff to do, and in most (non-math-related) classes, I could more or less get away with it. During finals one year, my friend Trez (who usually planned our adventures) suggested a trip to go spelunking at Carlsbad Caverns. We’d take our finals on Friday, hit the road for the 10-hour drive, and be back rested and studied up for the exams Monday morning. Perfect plan, right? So we plowed through our 8am exams and headed to New Mexico with our head-mounted flashlights and kneepads.
If you’re not familiar with spelunking, it’s basically going off-trail in caves. It obviously comes in fairly extreme varieties, involving ropes and scuba gear to go where no other human probably has. Our trip was pretty tame (I promise, Mom – we were totally safe!). We had a guide who walked us partway down the paved main trail into the caverns, and then we climbed up the wall about 10 feet and wriggled through a small opening into a side passage. We continued up rickety wooden ladders, passed bottomless dark chasms, crawled down cold, wet tunnels, and eventually made it to our goal: the Hall of the White Giant. Once we’d had a chance to marvel at how pristine and white the mound of calcium that made up the White Giant was, our tour guide had us turn off our lights. Deep underground, we got to experience total darkness – no light, just silence, cold and an occasional drip. It was novel at first, but it didn’t take long to become smothering. Then the tour guide lit a single match, and the White Giant was back.
It was amazing how reassuring that single match was. Without light, there was no finding our way back. But with our guide’s single match, we knew she’d get us back out just fine.
I kind of picture Christmas this way.
Instead of the safety and plenty of the Garden of Eden, the world is a dark, cold, lonely place. For Jews in the Roman Empire, it was pretty stinkin’ dark. And though the oppressor was different, God’s people cried out for their deliverer just as they did in Egypt.
And God answered… just as He’d promised.
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles—
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 4:15-16 (quoting Isaiah 9:1-2)
How are you doing today? Daylight savings time means we’re spending more of our days in darkness than in daylight. That, plus many of us are going through some pretty dark stuff. Painful stuff. Stressful, worrying, gnaw-at-your-soul kind of stuff. The kind that makes you lie awake at night, staring into the darkness and wondering when you’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel. It may feel very much like you’re living in “the land of the shadow of death,” barely hanging on.
Keep hanging on. Christmas is the fulfillment of God’s promise that He will answer you in your need. We need saving, and so we cry out to Him. But unlike my caving guide, God didn’t send a match. He didn’t make something become light that previously wasn’t. God sent the One who created light in the beginning.
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:9)
I love the way John puts it there. The image I get is of that cave, absolute darkness. And then a tiny match flares up – but instead of burning for a minute or two and then dying, the tiny light grows steadily brighter, filling the cave… filling the whole world… making the thick blackness into daylight. The light of Christ fills your soul and mine, if we believe. It encourages and empowers each of us to overcome the most oppressively dark circumstances. For those who believe, that light – like the guide’s match in the cave – promises that we’ll find our way back home – not to Eden, but to something even better: to the presence of Christ Himself.
This Advent season, turn off the lights, light a candle and watch it chase the darkness from the room. It’s a great reminder of what Christ has done for us, what He is doing for us… and what He has yet to do for us. It’s a wordless reminder of what Christmas means.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)
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