LIVING FAITH

IT’S only when it’s really dark that you realise how much you need the light.

Here in Orkney, where I live when I’m not in the Midlands, it gets dark really early at this time of year. It also gets quite stormy, so we’re all used to having occasional power cuts.

But even so, when the light goes off there’s that moment of panic when you can’t see a thing, and you’re fumbling around for your phone, or a box of matches, or whatever will shed a little light.

Then you wander around the house looking for all the battery operated lights, and wondering if you’re going to need to get the camping stove out.

Not many of us probably would admit to being scared of the dark but I’m sure most of us would prefer to have a little light.

Those of us who go to church on Christmas will probably have heard the words from the beginning of John’s gospel: ‘the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’.

John’s taking the idea of physical light and darkness, and transferring them across to something much bigger – the light of the love of God who created the world, which he saw taking human form in Jesus Christ. At the darkest time of the year, the message he was telling was a message of hope: that the power of darkness has been defeated.

As you celebrate this Christmas, I hope you have a time full of light and happiness. But if this Christmas is a tough time for you, I hope you will find in it the message of hope, that God’s love is always shining into the world.

Rt Revd Jonathan Clark, Acting Bishop of Wolverhampton