Genesis 1:3-4 – Then God said let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

Meditation
It was early on the third morning of our canoe camp. My tent partner was still sound asleep when I woke up and, as quietly as is possible with a zippered tent door, I slipped outside. As I did I entered into a foggy mist filled world.

Our campsite was covered by a cloud and it was eerily beautiful even though you could see no more than twenty yards. And as the appropriate thing to do on a morning like that is fish, I grabbed my fishing pole walked down the shoreline a little way from our campsite and began to cast out into the waters of Little Lake Gabbro. My fishing in the Boundary Waters has always been much more hope filled than fish filled and that was most certainly the case that morning. But it was still a great morning to be out and I very much appreciated my early morning quiet time even if no fish were caught.

After I’d given up hope of catching breakfast it happened! The sun began to make its way through the fog mist filled sky. It was like a scene from the first day of creation. Out of nothingness, out of the chaos, there appeared light! It was almost as if God was speaking the light into existence that very morning, as this bright, pure, glorious light began to fill the sky. As the writer of Genesis tells us, it was good, very good!

I picture the first Christmas to be something like that. In a time when the thirst for power overwhelmed everything and fogged people’s minds a new bright, pure, glorious light was born into a manger in Bethlehem. The light of the world was born and that light that has been lighting the world ever since by lighting up people’s lives with his love.

Prayer
My prayer for our world is that we will dwell in the light of Christ, that we will allow Christ’s light to fill us, and that we shine that light out and into the darkness and fogginess of the world. Thanks be to God for the gift of Christ’s light!

Mark Geisthardt
United Methodist Church
Appleton, Wisconsin