Advent is the Season to let our Light Shine

        Have you noticed?  Little by little, slowly but surely, the darkness continues to erode the light.  The days are getting shorter.  We didn’t notice at first.  Not back in late June when daylight would greet us when we first opened our eyes from the night’s rest.  But that is when it started and for the next three weeks it will continue.  There will be more and more darkness until December 22 when the light begins to push back and reverse the darkness.

        The church anticipates the reversal of the darkness through the season of Advent.  Many years ago I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Advent.  I argued that the dominant theme of Advent is hope.  As we recall the stirring prophecies of swords being beaten into plowshares, of peace on earth, and righteous and justice for all people, we focus on the not yet as we yearn for a better world for all of God’s children.  Hope is a contradiction of the present, a belief that our best days are still to come.         

        Looking back I realize that I missed something.  Advent may be defined by hope but it is expressed with light.  We light candles.  We place lights on our Christmas trees and have elaborate outdoor light displays.  Advent is the season of hope and light.  The church doesn’t run from the darkness, it invades the darkness with degrees of light.

        The Apostle John, in his thunderous theological treatise on the Incarnation, described this lofty, mysterious, unexplainable reality with a simple metaphor:  “The light shines in the darkness, and darkness cannot overcome it.”  (John 1: 5)

        There is a reason we celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25 and it is not because Jesus was born on this day.  (Sorry about that—Jesus was probably born in the springtime when shepherds would be abiding in the fields)  In the old Julian calendar, December 25 was the winter solstice, the day the light started to reverse the onslaught of darkness.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus who is the “light of the world” on the day the light begins to reclaim the darkness!

        One December Sunday in 1956 Mrs. Frances Spencer walked into the sanctuary of her church in Danville, Virginia, and could not believe what she was seeing.  There was a Christmas tree!  A Christmas tree with colored lights, Santa Claus ornaments, and jingle bells!  In the church, no less!   Her first reaction was to protest, to complain that this is exactly what is wrong with Christmas.  Christmas is about Jesus, not Santa Claus.  This tree represented the secular world.  It had no place in the sacred house of worship.  But her righteous indignation was soon replaced with divine inspiration.  Rather than condemn, rather than judge, rather than complain, Mrs. Spencer was led to transform what she perceived as darkness into a glorious light. 

        She asked her minister if she could have the privilege of decorating the Christmas tree the next year.  He readily agreed and over the course of the year she created a number of handmade ornaments that proclaimed the true meaning of Christmas.  She replaced the colored lights with white lights to represent Christ as the light of the world.  She named her ornaments “Chrismons” which means a monogram of Christ.  Each Chrismon was designed to represent Christ and the message of God’s love.  This is how the Chrismon tree was born and this Advent many churches in Lexington and Davidson County have beautiful Chrismon trees in their sanctuaries to proclaim the true meaning of Christmas, the light that shines in the darkness. 

        Mrs. Spencer not only left us with a great tradition, but a powerful example of how we confront the darkness of our world.  We are not called to condemn the darkness but to transform it.  Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” With acts of mercy and grace we can drive out the darkness.  We can feed the hungry, provide Christmas gifts for deserving children, and reach out to the lonely and the depressed.  Let’s do more than turn on the lights this Advent season, let us become the light of Christ for a world of darkness.  For when the light shines in the darkness, the darkness can never overcome it!