Emphasis Preaching Journal

The days are short and dark now, but it is a season of lights. There are tree lights, store lights, neon lights. In a world constantly illuminated by fluorescent lights, headlights, flashlights, security lights, night-lights, and more, witnessing to the light may have lost some of its impact.

We simply flip a switch or push a button and there is light. It takes only a movement to turn on a motion-detecting light. We have become masters of light, but light created by human hands is artificial. It looks real enough, but it is not the true light. This world places its trust in all kinds of artificial lights, but those lights do not overcome the darkness. They merely mask it for a while.

Sometimes children fear their dark bedrooms. Adults avoid dark alleys, dark streets, and dark parking decks. We use the cover of darkness to hide or to do things we should not be doing. We can become lost in the dark.

The one true light has come to give sight to the blind, to reopen the eyes of the dead, to open the minds of those who question, and to shine on those who have been lost and forgotten. That light has transformed the darkness of death into the shining promise of a new world.