I serve in my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) in their women's organization. Every five months I'm in charge of writing a message to the women in my neighborhood. These were my thoughts this month.
It is unseasonably 68 degrees outside today. But Christmas
has arrived. My two-year-old Lucy wakes up and finds Christmas in the front
room, Christmas out the back window, Christmas on the house. She sees Christmas
lights. And then she remembers that “Daddy put them,” and we are both wrapped
in Christmas love, even though it feels like Christmas in San Diego instead of
a good, proper Cottonwood Heights Christmas.
Light is my favorite symbol of Jesus Christ. When
Christianity spread throughout the Eastern Roman Empire, the people who
believed in gods of light merged their beliefs with a belief in Jesus Christ. A
contemporary philosopher taught, “Light comes from the good,” and “light is the
visual image of God.” In visual art, halos began as sun rays emanating from
Christ’s head. That same culture built a church called Hagia Sophia, a building
gilded on the interior, open to the exterior, so that the physical presence of
Christ—light—could spill into the building, bounce around the walls, and carve
out a mystical experience for the viewers. They were wrapped in light.
Those two images have been on my mind as I’ve pondered light
the past week. I drive home from work where I teach my students about the
Byzantine Empire and how the Eastern Church used light to cut through the
darkness of a medieval world and teach about the Savior, and then I see light
coming from my own Christmas tree as I pull up my driveway in the 10 pm dark.
Light is irresistible in a darkened world.
It’s been a pretty dark year—world-wise. I can’t remember
one in my lifetime where the events seem so fraught with hatred and ugliness.
But I believe Jesus Christ. I feel kinship with the woman who was caught
committing adultery, dragged out by a very aggressive crowd and threatened with
stones thrown at her head. Jesus dismissed the men and told the woman He did
not condemn her and encouraged her to, “Go, and sin no more.” Then He told the
same men, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Jesus took a woman having a pretty
dark day and wrapped her in light.
And He could promise it because of His own day of darkness. In His final mortal conversation with His friends and apostles, Jesus taught them that He was about to face all the darkness of the world (including the darkness of the woman taken in adultery and the darkness of 2017) and die. He told them it was time for them to leave Him alone. And then, as His farewell, before He was pressed by pain and sorrow, He reminded them, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER; I have overcome the world.”
That’s the Christmas I find in my living room, out the back
window, on the house. Wrapped in light, I see my commitment to be of good
cheer—grace of Jesus Christ. I also see my commitment to follow Him, the Light
of the World, as I attempt to be that same light by loving and serving and
lifting and illuminating. He is the Light of the World. I will light the world.
Merry Christmas,
Laura
