My Christmas offering this year is a Christmas and Easter message. On many cards I have received over the years with a picture of the baby Jesus, light is radiating from the baby lying on hay in that trough. But there is nothing in the Bible about light shining from the baby. Yet there could have been some supernatural light radiating from Jesus, who was Immanuel, which means God with us. For example, Luke states: “An angel of the Lord appeared to [the shepherds], and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified” (Luke 2:9). Yet following the humble birth, that barn may have been quite dark.
Once as a student at Virginia Tech, I went spelunking (exploring a cave) with friends one Saturday in early spring. We wore helmets with headlamps, which we rented for five dollars each at an outdoors store in downtown Blacksburg. It was quite the adventure traveling deep into the long cave near the New River. Full of stalactites, stalagmites, and crevices, one cave passage was so low we had to crawl on our stomach on the hard, wet, and muddy ground.
Finally reaching the back cavern, we were excited about our accomplishment. Then I asked my friends to turn off their headlamps. It was dark! Then I asked everyone to put his hand in front of his face. You could not see your hand in front of your face! Once our headlamps were turned back on, I picked up a journal someone had placed in that back room of the cave. I wrote an entry, saying something about seeking a “light in the darkness.” I think deep down, I was hoping for such in my heart in those college years.
When the body of Jesus was lying dead in the tomb, it would have been pitch dark. Once Jesus was resurrected, I consider that maybe the tomb was filled with His light, just as light shone from Jesus during the “transfiguration” recorded in Matthew 17:1-8 and Mark 9:2-8. (And see Revelation 21:23.) If not, think of the joy Jesus must have experienced as light hit His eyes from the glowing angel who rolled away the stone, and from rays of sunlight there in the first daylight hour of that glorious dawn.
Now Jesus left the tomb before the five or more women arrived, since both Mark 16:4 and Luke 24:2 tell about the arrival of the women. (I put brackets around Matthew 28:2-4 in my Bible, since those three verses shift location to the tomb while the women were still on their way, and then Matthew 28:5 shifts back to focusing on the story of the women’s experience however many minutes later.) Once the women did see Jesus, He apparently looked like His usual self. Yet His formerly dead body had been transformed, really being re-formed back to who He is, God the Son! As John Stott proposed in his book Basic Christianity: “[The body] would have passed through the grave clothes, as it was later to pass through closed doors…” (53).
The glorious offer by Jesus to us today: You can have the light of life in your heart if you receive Him. The apostle John stated: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). Spiritual darkness is a result of being separated from God, which always results in getting engrossed in sin. The end of spiritual darkness is spiritual death. Yet being united with God happens if a person believes in Jesus, the spiritual light, because she or he receives forgiveness from Jesus, who was the sacrificial atonement for sins. He was the substitute for the consequence of sins!
If you do not know Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you can right now. Jesus died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. His atonement was unlimited. Now the decision is yours. If you follow Jesus, you will still suffer in this world full of spiritual darkness. Yet you will have eternal life with Jesus!
In John 8:12, Jesus states: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
I hope you have a great Christmas!
Hunter Irvine
