Psalm 92 | Exodus 33:12-23 | 1 John 1:1-9 | John 21:9b-24

“God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5

Light spilled out of the window of a house on Court House Lane, beckoning me during an evening walk in November. Inside, a tree was aglow.

Any other year, I would have thought it was a bit early for Christmas decorations; I mean, Thanksgiving was still a week and a half away.

But not this year. With everything 2020 had thrown at us, I welcomed this defiance of the darkness by a luminous tree whose triangular shape is said by some to represent the Holy Trinity.

I didn’t know who lived in the house – a neighbor, a stranger – and yet we had common ground beyond the sidewalks we shared. Decorating a Christmas tree, whether in mid-November or mid-December, as I did, is a ritual rooted in the promise and hope heralded by the birth of Jesus more than 2000 years ago.

John’s First Letter says “If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.”

Thanks to a twinkling tree, I felt such fellowship with the unknown person or family within. It stirred me to take a photo. And as I walked away, into the night and toward 2021, I reminded myself to keep looking for the light.

John Walsh