the light.

There would be this marvelous light. From darkness. This sign. The reveal of what was to come after the destruction. Peace. That’s all they – we, us — ever wanted. A moment in time when the weapons would crumble and the enemies would fall to their knees in defeat. When the groves would be full of trees and the animals would live harmoniously. The lion would no longer stalk the lamb. When children could play in the streets now rid of those hazards and terrors that once made it impossible to do so. 

Gentility. The bruised won’t be broken. Direction. The paths once crooked would be made straight. Sight restored, ears tuned to hear the right notes. 

All of that, in a baby. 

The Creator sees such power in things deemed by those as being weak, those drunk off of their own might. 

The Creator sees the weak, the opposed. This baby was born to free those just like him. Oppressed, on the run. Ordered to be killed because though the world may have seen him as just a little one, those in power knew him to be a threat. You must keep people oppressed to keep yourself in power. Master’s rules, master’s tools. Yet they couldn’t. Couldn’t while in the arms of his mother and couldn’t as he hung by his arms on the cross. Death was defeated in many ways. That’s what light is supposed to do. 

Where’s the light in the everlasting season of darkness, of death? 

I sometimes fail to see the light of Jesus. It’s simply not there. I know him as a reconciler, a grafter. The searcher for the lost, the one who rejoices when his children come home after years of being gone. There’s no war, no destruction of peoples. There’s no blockades, no refusal to disperse aid. There’s no bombing of people who just happen to be in the way. There’s no intended decimation of an entire group of people who were there before you. There’s no destruction of hospitals and soldiers all too happy to shoot and kill, even when its their own people. There’s no kicking people out of house and home and then locking the remnants in. There’s no cutting off of life-saving services. There’s no collective punishment. 

That’s what was promised to be away from us when that root of Jesse arrived. Tools of decay and destruction would be melted down into tools of healing and rehabilitation. A bringer of justice and freedom who arrive to settle disputes between nations. That’s what a Wonderful Counselor is supposed to do. No more gloom for those in distress. A yoke shatterer. A rod breaker. 

A prince of peace. 

A prince of peace who told us that while we wait, we must be his light. To reconcile with those we’ve lost along the way. To be of service. To help bring justice to those who’ve been wronged. To put down our swords. To make a pathway straight for someone trying to find their way. To provide for each other. To call out the injustice in our midst. To make the oppressor be in fear. To be good counsel and to seek peace. 

To be that marvelous light. As bright as the star that called those three men to Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of the one who Isaiah prophesied to bring light into the darkness. This season should remind us to be as guided by that light as they were and call for peace and justice as our Savior would. Even as darkness surrounds the world.