A child is born
Lying among white cloths
As the moon among clouds
They both shine

And this is how the poem ‘Nativity’ by RS Thomas begins.

It offers to us the image of a light, shining from a child, and into the heart of the night, in order to show the importance of Christ’s coming: of the birth of Jesus, who was then laid in swaddling clothes. The poem continues to say that, there from his manger

the light from the one

is abroad in the universe
as among broken glass.

A light who shines in darkness is also the image with which the gospel of John unfolds the mystery of the incarnation.

John uses a light as a sign to help us to understand how and why the eternal and creative reason of God (whom he also calls the Word, and later the Son) … becomes fully of the world; becomes at one with our own ruddy human flesh as Mary’s child.

John’s light shows how by the pure conception; through the bloody birth; and in the inspiring life of Jesus, we might fulfil all our own life’s purposes fully: for through coming to know of and believe in these things, the light then still shines in every corner of our hearts (as Katrina and the Waves sang, when they won Eurovision in the mid 1990s).

The light still shines for us beyond any darkness, poet and evangelist and pop stars all say.

And poet and evangelist (at least) believe that its glow still invites us all to be raised to eternal life through our growing understanding.

On this darkening night, what is the truth of God that will shine more brightly for us? By seeing anew this symbol of light and thinking on its meaning, how will we hear again a call to believe in the brightening hope of Jesus?

To speak of the incarnation as the coming of light helps us to see the perfection of the relationship between God and his Word: that their identities are as close as light source and light beam; identical and perfectly sharing in the same glory: That the Word is – as the creed we will later say together puts it – God of God and light of light.

To explore the image of light therefore helps us to understand that the fullness of God’s wholeness is given to the Word, and becomes real among us in Jesus. In Jesus’ life there is nothing shadowed from God’s being; and in God, nothing is hidden from what has been shown to us in Jesus.

Jesus – ‘light abroad in the universe’, in RS Thomas’ phrase – helps us to know how fast God’s love is advancing toward us. It is coming to all at the swiftest of pace, and never stopping in its progress.

The light of God’s love in Jesus comes light-speed fast to his world, and most of all, he frantic in his love for justice to be with the vulnerable; the poor; the oppressed; and to hearten the hopes of the meek.

For just as we know by our sight of a clear night sky that no darkness can prevent the light of star or moon from shining through it, so Jesus comes to be seen by and stand with all those to whom no other help has come, except that his light can reach out to them.

Though he lived as but one man in one place and one time, to see Jesus through light as a prism reveals this again. For pure light contains with in itself a spectrum of all colours, shown in their rainbow of different shades when refracted by broken glass or split by striking the waves of the sea. In the incarnation Jesus entered into the fullness of humanity: and for the whole diverse fullness of all humanity – whoever we may be – he came.

Broken glass is also reflective of light, even in its fragility and imperfection: and so for all of us who have come to know of and to believe in these things, the light of our Lord is being shared with others.

The light, reflected, grows as it glows, for an increasing knowledge of God within the world; for a growth in the presence of love among our community; for a witness to justice and for peace; and for the dignity of all people.

Though we are tarnished mirrors of the light of the Christ, if we seek to shape our lives around the child who was born of Mary and by this understanding of light’s truth and power, then through us this good news will carry to

Let our love shine a light
in every corner of the world.