The fourth verse, especially, has contributed to my Advent preaching this year:

These are phrases of incarnation.  God becomes human.  John the Baptist prepared us for the “Word made flesh,” Jesus, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  The angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, but he prepared us also for God to become incarnate in the Christ child.  And we have been preparing, too, for realizing once again that in Jesus, God incarnate is present with us always – our Lord Emmanuel.

The carol still plays in my head, but now what speaks to me is verse one:

O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting light;

The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.

Jesus Christ is the everlasting light that can dispel our deepest fears and anxiety and kindle hope within our hearts.  John, the Gospeler, wrote this in the most beautiful way:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being with him was life and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.   John speaks of the everlasting light.

All of us have experienced darkness in our lives.  At some time or another, each of us has lived on a dark street, felt like we were in a dark hole, or relegated to some dark corner where nobody loves us or cares what happens to us.  We have known the sadness of death, the pain of addiction, the hopelessness of depression and despair.  We have felt the anxiety of joblessness or homelessness; the pressure of too much work or not enough.
We need the light of Christ to shine upon us in that dark place and bring us hope.  We need that light, that true light, which enlightens everyone that John - both the Baptist and the Gospel writer – say was coming into the world.  We need that light in our dark world.

Interestingly, translators have argued over just how to read this verse 9:   the participle either modifies Christ, as our version translates it, or it modifies everyone.  The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.  Or: He was the true light that enlightens everyone coming into the world.  In the first instance, Christ is the one coming into the world.  The second translation implies that any of us – all of us – who are born into this world, are also born into a world that is enlightened by Christ.

It doesn’t really matter, does it?  The significance of the incarnation is that Christ is the light, but he does not simply shine.  Rather, Christ is the light that shines upon us, all of us who are in the world.  He does not simply shine in some far-off heaven.  He shines in the darkness of the world, our darkness.

A Christian, one who believes in and follows Christ, is someone upon whom this Light has shined and through whom this everlasting light shines forth.  Christians are not smarter, or morally better than the rest of humanity.  We are simply those upon whom Light has shined and through whom the Light does shine.  We have seen the Light, and we walk in the Light – the light that can dispel fear and kindle hope. (Willimon 64)

As John writes:  the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.  In our dark streets shineth the everlasting light.


Willimon, William. “God Gets Local.” Pulpit Resource 33.4 (2005): 61-64.

John 1: 1-14

Rev. Kathryn Henry
Peapack Reformed Church
Gladstone, NJ
December 25, 2005