Seventh Day Baptist
Christian Education Council
PO BOX 1678
Janesville, WI 53547
—Isaiah 42:1-9
by: Linda Lawton.
Here in the Northern hemisphere, we celebrate the Nativity in midwinter—the time of shortest days, the darkest time of year. In The Light of Christmas, edited by Frances Brentano, is written, “Until almost two thousand years ago, the greeting at midwinter was, ‘I give you light for the year.’ About a century after the first Christmas, John, author of the Fourth Gospel, wrote of Advent in terms of spiritual Light shining through the world’s darkness. And the greeting gradually became, ‘I give you Christ, the Light of the World’” (p.16). Would that we could remember the servant come to be a light to the nations and return to this greeting, not only in December but all throughout the year.