By: Nathan Miller
The Coronavirus pandemic has cast a long shadow over most of the world. Many people are locked in their homes, with little to no personal communication with the outside world by design. Every time you venture to the store or to work, a small voice in your head probably asks, “Am I contracting the virus, am I spreading it unknowingly, or am I just going to the store?” Faced with the prospect that we are still in the early stages of this crisis, fear and despair feels like a natural response.
Yet, amidst the fear and the waning hope that much of the world is experiencing, a small and growing segment of the population has responded by putting its Christmas lights back up… in March. If you ask them, they’ll say they are trying to shine a light of hope in a world they fear has gone dark. They want to feel better, and they know Christmas is a time when those feelings come naturally.
In reality, what these individuals are doing reveals less about the celebration itself and more about the person's desire and need for the event that causes us to celebrate on December 25th--the event that provides such strong feelings that we run to it in seasons of fear:
John 1:1-5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Those who celebrate Christmas in March are hoping for a Savior. They want someone to push back the darkness, burst forth in glorious appearing, and make everything right again. When they cry out in fear, they want someone to wipe the tears from their eyes. They want someone to intervene in a world suddenly confronted with its own mortality with a message that He has overcome the darkness, overcome the virus, overcome the death it may cause, and provided a path toward light, bodies bathed in redemption, and life eternal. They are looking for Christ.
Christian, we have the light of all life who has conquered the darkness, and the world is asking for Him. Let us, first of all, trust in that light to see us through this crisis, to either depart and be with Him (for that is far better) or stay and minister to others (which is our strong desire). Then, let us seek every opportunity to share that light with the people around us, even at a distance of six feet or more.