In a week’s time it will be the eve of Christmas Eve. In towns and villages across the land last-gasp presents will be hurriedly bought, gifts purchased some time ago will be desperately searched for (and hopefully found) as a time of final wrapping approaches.
For many farmers, it is still a busy time of year, with the routine and rhythm of farming life largely uninterrupted by the festive season - cows still need to be milked, livestock housed inside will need to be fed, with fields needing to be ploughed, made more difficult with the shorter days and decreasing light.
The shortest day makes for the longest night
This coming Thursday will actually see the shortest day of the year - the Winter Solstice. The sun will rise late and at the end of this fleeting day, in some parts, it will be dark by half past four.
The shortest day makes for the longest night, yet, at this time of year, the warm glow of Christmas trees from front rooms across the country brighten the gloomiest of streets. Along with tractor cabs strung with tinsel, lights woven around gateposts and over hedges, across cattle sheds and farm yards, as we will see in a moment, “The light shines in the darkness…” But whose?
In the opening lines of John’s Gospel, we read that, “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world” (John 1:9). He was talking about Jesus. Later on, John records Him declaring to the people, “‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12).
It is a wonderful picture of who Jesus is and how He can bring to each who will accept Him as Lord and Saviour, new life, an eternal life, living in the light of the salvation that Jesus alone came to give.
When you have light – everything looks different
Today, many people walk in spiritual darkness. In some ways it is like looking for a lost tool in a barn in the dead of night without a torch. Perhaps that is you there, stumbling around in the dark, for it was certainly me once upon a time. But when you have light – everything looks different, you can see, and that’s when what was once lost, can be found.
John also tells us this, “In Him [Jesus] was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). Whatever happens, nothing can, or ever will, overcome or put out, the light of Christ and the life He offers to those who believe in Him.
The writer of Psalm 119 says that those who seek God with all their heart will be blessed (v2). As we approach the shortest day of the year, and as we remind ourselves of the Christmas story, remembering what took place in the fields around Bethlehem all those years ago, and in a stable in the town itself; it is my prayer that you will ask Jesus to shine His light on your heart. Have a happy and very blessed Christmas.
Before coming to live in Belfast nearly 40 years ago, Mark Smith grew up in a village in rural Sussex, coming to Northern Ireland in his late teens. He is a member of Bloomfield Presbyterian Church in east Belfast and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland’s press officer.
His blog appeared in today’s Farming Life, a fortnightly column entitled ‘Good News for the Countryside’, where people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life.
You can look at other blogs in this series here.If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at ruralchaplain@presbyterianireland.org or call him on 07938 488 372.