Day 5: Light and Darkness

John 1:5 : The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.

The light of Jesus is shining in the darkness. The Bible says that there is darkness and Jesus is shining in it. This tells me that the world around us is not full of light. This is something that challenges our thinking as Christians. Because of the way people act around us, it’s easy to think that the world has everything together; that it has the light, but the Bible says that it is Jesus who has the light and the world has the darkness.

The world’s darkness has not been able to overcome the light that comes from the life of Jesus. When we have Jesus life in us, our light cannot be overcome by the darkness either. It is very interesting to read that it use the present tense: “That light shines…” Jesus is still alive today inside of us. The light still shines.

I think that as history, this verse is specifically talking about the fact that even though Jesus came at a very dark time in history, the evil at that time could not destroy Him or his purpose here.

The things that happened to Jesus before He was born weren’t that great. His mother and father were forced to go all the way to Bethlehem just to be counted so that they could pay taxes when they were nine months pregnant. He was forced to be born in a town that was so crowded, the guest rooms were all taken and the animal lodging place had to be used. After the baby was born Herod, their leader, became jealous when he heard that a king had been born somewhere in his region, so he ordered that all children put to death under the age of two. Joseph was warned in a dream and immediately left to Egypt. Jesus was constantly pressed by the darkness in this world and ultimately put to death by it. But even in this, he overcame. I doubt that it really was a “Silent Night” the day Jesus was born. The good part is that Jesus was shining in this dark world and nothing could stop it.