One moment in time…
Is there just one moment you can remember that defines Christmas for you? I have a Christmas memory of my childhood, of waking one Christmas morning, getting up and it was just getting light- still mostly shadows. Our tree was in the hall, but the lights were off and I could only see a vague image there. The presents were just dark spots under the tree. I looked at the tree and, aware that there were no lights on in the house, thought I was the first one up; but there was a faint glow from the kitchen. I walked past the tree and toward that glow. I lived with my grandparents, and there was my grandfather sitting at the kitchen table, a candle lit, drinking coffee. I remember asking him why he was sitting in the dark with just the candle and him telling me that he was waiting for me to wake up. This little memory was just one moment in time; but as I remember it now, I realize he demonstrated his love for me in the best way he knew how.
Something else comes to me in remembering that moment. The light that announced Jesus’ arrival in Bethlehem was so much brighter than that little candle my grandfather lit in the kitchen.
He is waiting for us all to wake up. The world, like that tree, sits in darkness; can we not pass it up to go to the Light?
“…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 4:16