When Christmas Lights Go Dim Pt. 2
“JESUS IS THE TRUE LIGHT 🌕THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD 🌎.” (John 1:9)
INTRODUCTION
There is no season of the year that lights up 🌕 the landscape ♍and the hearts 💓 of men 👷, women 👮,
and children🙅 as the celebration of a tiny baby boy 🚼 born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago! Sweet little Jesus boy, born in a manger!
No other day or season comes close to the level of joy and peace and festivity perennially! Come now, babies are born every day all over the 🌎 world by the hundreds if not thousands! Yes, but not to a virgin named Mary who never had intercourse 👖👗, and who was impregnated by the Holy Spirit!
Mary’s Magnificat in Like 1 spoken to her cousin Elizabeth is immortal in historical literature! In Luke 1:16-17 Mary praises God for the miracle babe in her womb,
“MY SOUL DOES MAGNIFY THE LORD, AND MY HEART REJOICES IN GOD MY SAVIOR.”
But the enormity of it all only hit her when the Baby 🚼 came forth. It is no wonder that teen mother Mary in the stable 🐄 🐑was for the most part silent and astonished as she pondered the miracle before her that had been birthed from her. Mothers post birth are generally quiet in exhaustion and unspeakable love. Mary had given birth to God in the flesh! Superman’s 💪 mother never felt anything like this!
Somehow the miracle is new every year! It is like on Christmas morning every home is transformed into a manger ♏! You can smell the hay, and hear the cattle 🐂 lowing! I can recall it clearly as if I were still a small boy. There was nothing like it, and it happened every year as if it were the first time ever!
The merriment of MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎀🎀🎀 is off the charts 📈.
Of course there are always the SCROOGE TYPES 😠 who endure it from outward pressure 🌀, but never celebrate from inward passion 💓. They can’t turn the lights off 📴 fast enough, and go back to their isolated drab existence 🚶. The whole thing for them is a dud, and falls to earth like a stone ⚫. They spend their lives fighting nativity scenes for the ACLU!
But for millions of us it is the most joyful and loving time of the entire year. We love the Baby Jesus 🚼 born in Bethlehem as if He was our own brother. We call Him affectionately WONDERFUL! WONDER BOY! WONDROUS CHILD!
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THE SEARCH FOR THE LIGHT 🌕 OF TRUTH
The flashing and twinkling lights of Christmas 🎄 have now gone dormant once again, and no longer entertain the 👀 eyeballs of man. It is a drab and doleful season in the unlit colorless 🔳 post-Christmas dull drums for so many multitudes of people 🌚!
So many again celebrated externally, but in spite of all the lights 🔘🔴🌕🔵, they were not illuminated inwardly. They hung the lights in darkness, and they took them down in darkness, without a flicker of light 🔸shining within.
So their search for true light 🌕 and the light 🌕 of truth will go on in their inner darkness. They will send their children back to dark schools and darker colleges that offer them hollow ancient 📜, medieval 📙, and modern philosophies 📗that only add to the emptiness and darkness.
It is more than profound to hear what ARISTOTLE, the renowned scholar and philosopher, once said! He affirmed that there was never a philosopher in the world 🌎 to his knowledge but had deep within him a sense of melancholy 😱 and sorrow😰.
It almost sounds like Solomon,
“VANITY, VANITY, ALL IS VANITY, SAYS THE PREACHER!”
“MEANINGLESS, MEANINGLESS, EVERYTHING IS MEANINGLESS, SAYS THE PHILOSOPHER.”
That is an Aristotelian mouthful indeed! All the world’s ideologies and ideologues who reputedly produce the light 🌕 of understanding end up forlorn! Apart from JESUS THE TRUE LIGHT, they only grieve over the futility of it all! They emerge from it all in 😢 consternation and mournfulness! 🌚!
But with Jesus there are no post Christmas blues 😱! We read in Isaiah 60:20,
“THE LORD SHALL BE YOUR EVERLASTING LIGHT🌕, AND YOUR DAYS OF MOURNING 😩 WILL BE OVER 😀!”
With the Lord, it is Christmas every day, only infinitely far better and brighter:
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of sin🌑 is removed 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of guilt 🌑 is forgiven 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of disgrace 🌑 is forgotten 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of Hell🌑 is escaped 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of futility 🌑 is dispelled 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of aloneness 🌑 is forever gone 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of all falsehoods 🌑 is erased🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the darkness of demons 🌑 is driven out 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the emptiness of loss 🌑 is filled 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, the pains of hatred and betrayal 🌑 are healed 🌕!
-With Jesus the everlasting light, all mourning and sorrow 🌑 is overjoyed 🌕!
With Jesus the everlasting light, the door of death 🌑 is now the gate of Heaven 🌕
With Jesus the everlasting light, all meaninglessness in life 🌚 is overwhelmed with life abundant🌕!
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JOHN’S UP CLOSE ASSERTION
The Apostle John says in John 1:9
“THE LORD IS THE TRUE LIGHT 🌕 THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN 🚹 THAT COMES INTO THE WORLD.”
Have you ever seen a creature from outer space 👾👽? I have not seen an E.T, but John saw a HEAVENLY BEING OF SUPERNATURAL LIGHT🍚. This was light 🌕 so overwhelmingly heavenly and other worldly, and yet so astonishingly real, that it made all other lights underwhelmingly dim if not just plain dull.
SORRY Thomas Edison, but your light is a faint spark🔸 compared to the TRUE LIGHT 🌕!
JOHN SAW TRUE LIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE. Oh yes He did! We as God’s people will all see it 🌕 one day! The face of Jesus lights up Heaven so bright, that there will not need to be sunlight there! The SON ECLIPSES THE SUN!
Now listen! No, don’t you dare make the big bad blunder and simply symbolize and metaphorize the TRUE LIGHT. THE TRUE LIGHT 🌕 IS THE SON OF GOD, NOT AN ICON TO REPRESENT A CONCEPT!
II Corinthians 4:6 says about this TRUE LIGHT,
“IT IS THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE FACE OF JESUS CHRIST!”
THE TRUE LIGHT 🌕 IS MORE THAN A HOLY GLOW IN JESUS ‘ FACE, IT IS THE HOLY GOD HIMSELF REFLECTED OFF THE FACE OF HIS SON!
John the Beloved in John 1:9 makes that enormous declaration not only under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit , but what he declares, he saw 👀 with his own eyes.
He had been closer to Jesus than anyone! He lay on Jesus bosom like a nursing child. He was part of the inner circle – Peter, James and John – Jesus’ 3 👤👤👤amigos.
John had a front row seat! John saw Jesus on that mountain 🗻 when Jesus lit up like lightening ⚡in a powerful electrical storm! Jesus ILLUMINATED the whole mountain with light 🌕 brighter than anyone had ever seen.
Peter, James, and John were dumbstruck! So in keeping with being dumbstruck, Peter said something dumb! He suggested that 3 dwellings be built, mountain cabins, one each for Moses and Elijah who made guest appearances for THE LIGHT show, and one for Jesus SUPERLIGHT! Sort of a mountain retreat with lighting included! Peter’s very own DISNEYWORLD with MAGICMAN LIGHT, AND OLD TESTAMENT CELEBRITIES COME BACK TO LIFE! IT WOULD SURELY DRAW HUNDREDS IF NOT THOUSANDS TO JESUS! ADMISSION FREE! THEN JESUS WOULD LIGHT HIMSELF UP! A REAL SHOWSTOPPER!
John could not ever get that image out of His mind 🔐! It was locked in his mind’s eyes forever. He was forever light struck with a light 🌕 unlike anything heaven or earth afforded!
The TRUE LIGHT JESUS 🌕 has come into the world of dense 🌑 and gross spiritual and moral darkness that covers the whole earth 🌎. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, and tucked away in a manger, Heaven’s OMNIPOTENT LIGHT🎇 in the form of the brightest baby 🚼 the 🌎 world has ever seen! Eternal batteries included! Never needs recharging, and one day soon He shall light 🌕 up the new Heaven and the new earth all by Himself forever and ever!
“SHINE JESUS SHINE 💥, FILL THE LAND WITH THE FATHER’S GLORY
BLAZE SPIRIT BLAZE, SET OUR HEARTS ON 🔥FIRE!'”
AS THIS LITTLE dynamo GREW UP, as a 12 year old boy, 🙍 He would outshine 🎆 Jewish theologians old enough to be His great grandfather! His light 🌕 blinded old rabbis who thought they saw everything so clearly. How can a preteen make old venerable scholars squint 😑 in ignorance? The young bright jaw dropper found favor with God and man!
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THEY LOVED 💜 THE DARKNESS 🌑
The divine-human power pack 🌕 actuated everything and everybody into visibility as they really were. You could not hide from yourself in His luminous🌕 presence. The first person they ever met who made them feel like they were always on candid camera 📷!
People didn’t like that at all! THEY felt denuded and exposed 👻! They strongly preferred the darkness of Satan over the Light of Jesus. It is so much more comfortable standing in the devil’s shadows 🌚 than in Jesus’ light 🌕.
As the Psalmist puts it in Psalm 39:6,
“IN THY LIGHT WE SEE LIGHT.”
FACT is, we see much more than we really want to 👀see when Jesus flips the switch! Have you ever shouted to someone,
“HEY 😵,TURN OFF THAT LIGHT!”
You can’t stare at the sun without 🔥burning your eyeballs! But looking at Jesus Who shines brighter than the midday sun, you are not blinded! Rather, your sight is made 20-20 temporally and eternally, spiritually and morally!
In short,
“WITH JESUS YOU ADD LIGHT 🌕 TO LIGHT🌕, BUT APART FROM JESUS YOU ADD DARKNESS 🌑 TO DARKNESS 🌑.”
What do you prefer, the LIGHT 🌕 OF JESUS, or THE DARKNESS 🌚 OF SATAN?
We read in John 3:19,
“AND THIS IS THE CONDEMNATION, THAT LIGHT 🌕 HAS COME INTO THE WORLD 🌎. AND MEN LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN THE LIGHT, BECAUSE THEIR DEEDS WERE EVIL.”
Light is a two edged sword! It exposes the good and the bad!
The people of Jesus’ day loved 💜darkness 🌑 and hated the light 🌕! They killed Him in an attempt to turn off the light once and for all!
The people of our day are 😠 madly in love with darkness! The Democrats want to keep light out of their party platform! They want to govern in darkness! GOD IS LIGHT, AND IN HIM THERE IS NO DARKNESS AT ALL! Not a dot, not a fade, not a shadow, or a trace!
It is the world’s love affair 💜. They will kill for darkness! They love it, they protect it, and they walk with it every day! Darkness is their best friend! At least in Satan’s darkness, you don’t have to look at your scabby sinful self. Sin’s sores and scabs make acne look like flowers 🎊!
Much the same as King 👑 Herod who committed adultery with his brother’s wife Herodias. Herod lived with Herodias as his wife, and her belly💃 dancing offspring Salome as his daughter! John the Baptist, Jesus’ forerunner search light 🌕, exposed their sins, so they killed him. They cut off his head. THEY CLAPPED ON THE DARKNESS 🌑, AND CLAPPED OFF THE LIGHT 🌕!
They thought they had eclipsed the TRUE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. But when JESUS rose from the dead to prove that our sins are gone, the angel that rolled away the stone from His borrowed grave HAD A BLAZING COUNTENANCE LIKE LIGHTENING ⚡, AND HIS GARMENT WAS WHITE AS SNOW 💭! I personally think he was still shimmering from the light of Jesus Who had passed by him on His way out of the tomb! The angel had SON BURN!
MOSES SPENT TIME WITH GOD ON MT. SINAI 🗻, AND CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN WITH HIS FACE SO LUMINOUS 🌕, THAT HE SCARED THE PEOPLE TO DEATH! HE HAD TO PUT A BAG OVER HIS HEAD TO KEEP FROM TERRIFYING THE ISRAELITES with his flashing face! You talk about getting a FACIAL! That will clean your pores!
Then there was that fella named SAUL OF TARSUS! He wasn’t THE ANTI-CHRIST, but he was an anti-Christ! He hated the Messiah, and he went everywhere persecuting and killing Christians including Stephen the first martyr who Saul stoned to death!
Hitler hated Jews, Saul hated Christians! One day on the way to Damascus, A LIGHT 🌕 SHINED OUT OF HEAVEN THAT KNOCKED HIM FLAT ON HIS FACE AND BLINDED HIM! IT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT THAT SAUL DESPISED! JESUS PUT SAUL IN TOTAL DARKNESS FOR SEVERAL DAYS, THEN GAVE HIM NEW EYES, A NEW HEART, AND A NEW NAME! WE KNOW HIM AS PAUL, THE GREATEST MISSIONARY FOR CHRIST WHO EVER LIVED.
I have seen saints who had such a close relationship with Jesus, that their countenance glowed with a Heavenly radiance 🍥! I could not take my eyes 👀off from them! Their faces glowed with HEAVENLY glory!
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HE SHINES ON EVERYONE 🌕
John 1:9,
“HE LIGHTETH 🌕 EVERY MAN WHO COMES INTO THE WORLD.”
Heavenly Sunshine 🌕, Heavenly Sunshine🌕 , Flooding My Soul
With Glory Divine, Heavenly
Sunshine 🌕, Heavenly Sunshine 🌕,
Hallelujah, Jesus Is Mine!
Jesus is an equal opportunity SHINER 🎇! He shines His light upon the darkness engulfing every sinner! He is the LIGHTHOUSE guiding you home to the safe harbor of HEAVEN past the rocks of idolatry, lust, and unnatural desires!
He is shining His Love-Light 🌕 on you! I know that you have seen it! He breaks through the dark clouds of sin and unbelief hanging over your head.
You have seen that shaft of LIGHT more than once! The other day at the traffic light it broke through 🎆! The other night 🌙 you thought it was the NORTHERN LIGHT 🌌! You opened your Bible and there was Psalm 27:1,
“THE LORD IS MY LIGHT AND MY SALVATION!”
He is reaching out to you to lead you out of darkness to the light of His love! AMEN!
