It was a hot summer night and the kids couldn’t sleep. Not only was it hot and humid but the mosquitoes were out in full force.
Mom, Sandy McIntosh, finally had enough of the kids complaining about the heat and the mosquitoes. She couldn’t do much about the temperature but she could provide relief from the pesky bugs. She got up and without turning on any lights went to the kitchen and grabbed a can of insect repellant. She went to the kids’ room and sprayed them; then sprayed the whole room for good measure.
In the morning, in the light of day, she discovered to her horror that she had covered her kids, the bedding and the room walls with blue spray paint. She is quoted as saying, “It did smell kind of funny.”
Problems happen when we don’t see clearly, when we operate in the dark. The coming of Jesus, his advent, is compared to the dawning of a new day. One of my favorite Christmas verses is Isaiah 9:2,
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
Author C.S. Lewis builds on this verse when he writes: I believe in Christ like I believe in the sun – not because I can see it, but by it I can see everything else.
If we don’t know Jesus then everything else in life is simply in the dark. His coming, his birth, was the beginning of something new. Because of his birth we have the opportunity to see God, to know him and to understand him better. And because of that, we can see everything else.