Look! The Light Is Here

If you were coming to visit me here in Houston and your plane arrived today—a few days before Christmas Eve—I’d take you to one of my favorite spots along the edge of downtown right before sunset. We’d park outside the historic building that used to be a massive mail sorting facility, the one that’s recently been transformed into a cultural hub. We’d skip the food hall on the ground floor (at least for now) and instead go straight to the rooftop gardens.

One of the last times I walked up to the roof, a group of little girls was already there, posing for pictures with their parents and sprinting across the skylawn. One broke away from the others, running back to grab her mom’s hand. She called out, “Momma, the lights! The lights are here!” She looked up at her mom’s face to make sure her mom was taking it all in: the sunset stretching across the sky, the buildings lit up across the city, and the Christmas decorations glowing all around them.

I could barely hear the little girl’s voice above the sounds of the freeway beside us. Below, drivers were crossing the bridge over the bayou to head home for the night. They would never have been able to hear the girl, but I wondered if any of them shared even an ounce of her delight. Did they see the beauty right in front of them? The lights all around were declaring a message easily missed: 

Look! The Light is here. 

Declaring a Greater Light 

In these final days leading up to Christmas, you’re probably not looking to add anything else to your routine. You may be like the drivers sitting at the stoplight that night, staring straight ahead. But what if moments like that are the ones the Lord wants to use throughout the rest of this week to draw your attention upward? 

At this time of year, as the world is filled with color—from the natural splendor of a winter sunset to houses illuminated outside and in—its beauty declares that a greater Light has dawned (Matt. 4:16). In her book The Wonder of His Name, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wrote about the biblical importance of this name for Jesus: 

Truth, goodness, holiness, purity, godliness—Scripture intertwines each of these with light. God’s presence is associated with light, and His Word is said to be light. . . . 

During the Feast of Tabernacles, an annual event celebrated by the Jews, a ceremony took place called the Illumination of the Temple. Every night during the feast, four young men would climb ladders to fill four golden lamp bowls with oil and to light giant, seventy-five-foot-tall candelabras. The light lit up the temple, poured over the temple walls, and lit up the whole city. It reminded the people of that great light promised by the prophet Isaiah for those who walk in darkness.¹

As Nancy wrote, Jesus declared an important truth about Himself within the context of this ceremony. One day after it was celebrated, “while the memory of the lights was still fresh in everyone’s minds,”² Jesus said: 

“I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

The Temple lights would eventually go out, but the One they pointed to would remain forever, faithful and true. 

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:4–5)

Look Around

The Feast of Tabernacles won’t be taking place in your hometown this Christmas season, but all across your city, you’ll find visual reminders prompting your heart to see that the Light of the world has come—if you’re willing to look. You could find them . . . 

• When you turn on the lamp in your bedroom to read your morning devotional. 
• When you open the blinds and catch a glimpse of the sunrise.
• When your kids run into the living room and turn on the Christmas tree lights.
• When the snowy landscape sparkles as you drive home at dusk. 
• When you light a candle in the center of your dinner table.
• When your neighbors turn on all of their Christmas lights.
• When you sit beside the fireplace at the end of the day.

Consider this your challenge to invite the Lord to use the lights you see as a declaration to your heart that the greatest Light has dawned: 

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:4–5)

Look! The Light is here. 

¹ Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, The Wonder of His Name: 32 Life-Changing Names of Jesus (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), 44.
² Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, The Wonder of His Name, 44.