At this time of year, the nights start drawing in and the number of daylight hours is much less than in the Summer. Putting the clocks back at the end of the month so that it gets dark even earlier in the evening makes this even more noticeable. Many of us start to miss the amount of daylight which we enjoy in the Summer. This can affect our mood – for some people quite mildly, but for others very severely. Light is vital to everyday life and natural light is very different from artificial light.
Light is also symbolic of goodness and purity while darkness is symbolic of evil.
In the Bible, Jesus is described as the “True Light” that has come into the world. He is contrasted to the darkness of the world around him. That was written two thousand years ago. Looking around the world today, there is still lots of darkness. There is darkness in the form of hatred, terrorism, conflict, crime and falsehood. In contrast to this, Jesus brings love, joy, peace, justice and truth into our lives.
So why is there is still so much darkness? The Bible says: “light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light” (John’s Gospel Chapter 3 Verse 19 NIV). It is sometimes hard to see why people love darkness and evil rather than light and goodness. But we see it in the popularity of horror films and violent computer games. It is also clear from the growing celebration of Halloween. Costumes and make-up representing perpetrators of evil or their victims are neither funny nor uplifting. And yet many parents seem to choose these for both themselves and their children. The message that this unintentionally gives to children is that this sort of evil is something to be enjoyed and celebrated. Should we not be making it clear that all forms of evil should be opposed and where possible prevented?
Instead, we should celebrate and promote all that is good in the world. If we turn away from darkness and turn to Jesus, his light will shine into our lives – and that light can then shine out from us to those around us.