This blog is part two of a four-part Advent series.

Dr. Mateus de Campos

How do you know that Christmas is here? There are many different elements in the culture that, when combined, announce the arrival of the most anticipated time of the year. However, what seems to be the essential element of Christmas is perhaps the most conspicuous of all: light.

Lights are everywhere during Christmas, especially wrapped around Christmas trees. Legend has it that Martin Luther started the very unsafe custom of putting candles on indoor Christmas trees—a practice that thankfully evolved into the now safer practice of putting up Christmas tree light decorations. The most famous lighting ceremony—the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas Tree in New York City—is perhaps the most vivid expression of the fascination the world has with lights during Christmas. This year, the tree comes from East Greenbush, New York—a 75-foot tall Norway spruce, estimated to be about 75 years old, weighing around 11 tons. It is decorated with more than 50,000 multi-colored LED lights and topped with a 900-pound Swarovski star containing three million crystals. And when it lit up on December 3rd, the whole country seemed to pay attention to it, then initiating lights appearing everywhere.

We are fascinated with light—especially Christmas lights. This fascination, however, is an illustration of how easily distracted we are from the real meaning of things. We stare at our lit-up trees, shimmering with dancing light, while mostly unaware of what light truly represents this time of the year.

In the beginning “God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Gen 1:1–3). That’s when it all began, when the world was formless and void—the very picture of chaos: emptiness, disorderliness, darkness. When the only sign of God was his Spirit hovering over the waters in anticipation of the big moment of his creation.

Then God spoke. And when he spoke, he spoke light into darkness; light brought order to the chaotic world. Even in a simplistic, straightforward reading, this makes sense. Turning on the light is what you do in chaos. Whether it’s in an abandoned dark attic or a musty old basement, the first thing you do to fix chaotic realities is to turn on the light.

Now surely, God was not just “turning on the light” so he could see what he was doing. He was, indeed, in a very meaningful way, bringing order into chaos. In creating light, God creates time. He calls light day, and darkness, night (Gen 1:5). A formless and orderless world now has time, has a rhythm, seasons, pace. Everything is ordered under the care of the sovereign creator. And contrary to the popular Egyptian belief that the sun governed the world, Genesis tells us that light itself comes before the sun, which was created only in the fourth day (Gen 1:14-19). The sun comes into existence in an already ordered cosmos. The sun, moon, and stars don’t bring light; they are witnesses to the light. The universe is not self-sustaining; it is sustained by its Creator who is personally involved in and responsible for his creation.

God does not allow chaos to go unchecked. He does not allow formless realities to persist. It’s in the character of God to reverse chaos, to bring order, to fix what’s broken—to set things to right, and not only in a provisional way, but in a creative way. It’s in the character of God to step in and transform realities. And the proof of that is that we see God doing the same when his people are experiencing a different kind of darkness and chaos. When Israel is in exile, God promises to deliver them, using the same language of creation: in the midst of the darkness of the exile, when gloom and distress abound (Isa 8:22), the light of God comes with the promised Messiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone” (Isaiah 9:2, ESV).

Light will come, and those in darkness will see it as it had never been seen before. The same light that brought the world into being now enters it in flesh, as a child. The spoken light now speaks.

“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 anything 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” (John 1:1–5, ESV)

Jesus is light because in him is manifested the very glory of God the Creator—the same light that shone in the beginning of creation.

So perhaps seeing all the lights this time of the year can remind us to reclaim the promise that light came into the world bringing order, life, and hope. In the chaos and darkness of our world, may the light of Christ shine upon us—far brighter than those on Christmas trees.

Dr. Mateus de Campos is the George F. Bennett Associate Professor of New Testament. His latest book, The Preacher’s Greek Companion to Ephesians, came in June 2025 as a part of Hendrickson’s The Preacher’s Greek Companion series.