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Giotto, Mystical Nativity
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“The people that
walked in darkness has seen a great light.” This phrase from the First Reading
of the Christmas Vigil Mass is filled with meaning for a Christian. The phrase “great
light” in particular, “or gadol” in Hebrew, echoes across the Scriptures from
Genesis to Revelation. It expresses the radiant truth of God’s presence in our
lives. At Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus amongst us, Scripture is filled with light.
In Genesis, on the fourth day of creation, “God made the two
great lights, the greater light (or gadol) to govern the day.” (Gen. 1,16) The
Jews, in exile at the time amongst people who worshipped the stars, were poking
fun at their captors by saying that God created light on the first day and
heavenly bodies on the fourth as decorations for the sky. But at that stage,
the sun, or “great light,” was merely for daytime, a physical fact that we
recognise today.
But the “great light” became a much more powerful symbol as
their understanding and knowledge of God developed through their experience of
Him in their history. He became, in times of trouble, their Saviour God, and
the “great light” became, not a heavenly body that shone during the
daytime, but God himself who shone out as a beacon of hope in the darkness of
their captivity. “The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light.”
The link between
light and darkness, on the one hand, and sin and God’s salvation on the other,
persists throughout Scripture. Later in Isaiah, as we will hear on 8th January
in the Solemnity of the Epiphany, God’s people are told to “Arise, shine out;
for your Light has come, and the glory of
the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick
darkness the peoples; but the Lord will
arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you!” (Is. 60,1-2) Here, the
light does not only shine in the darkness; it dispels the darkness. By the time of the New Testament, this
unquenchable Light has become the person of Jesus, as we read in the prologue
to the Gospel of John: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it.” (John 1,5) Here
it is Jesus who overpowers permanently the darkness of sin through his death
and resurrection.
Finally, there is the definitive coming of the Light at the
end of time in the Book of Revelation, where John describes the New
Jerusalem: “And there will be no more
night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Rev. 22,5) Here, God himself, the Lamb, shines upon them, so that not only is
there no darkness, but no need of artificial light. The glory of God has
triumphed for ever, so that the darkness of sin, evil, sickness, suffering and
death no longer exists. In this symbol of the light overcoming the darkness and
destroying it forever, we are given the vision of eternal life for those who
love God and have remained faithful to him through the patient endurance of
their tribulations.
We are drawn once more to the crib before our altar. We can
never for a moment forget that, behind and beyond the homely and endearing
scene of the Holy Family, the shepherds, the sheep, the Magi and their camels which
we see every Christmas, lies the enormous reality of redemption from sin, of
a New Creation. All this can be ours, if only we will love and obey the
Universal King who lies so helplessly in the manger. “A light shines in the
darkness...this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be
glad.”
Fr Phillip.
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