We enjoy the Christmas lights that are so plentiful this time of year. The many, many outdoor decorations. The lit up, blown up snowmen and Santa Clauses in the front yards. A house in one neighborhood had over 10,000 lights in its front yard--several nativity sets, reindeer and Santas on the roofs, candy canes, lighted trees-flickering, following, static lights, even on the front of the pickup parked in the drive way with its glowing wreath.

As we begin to think about this message, the shadows of the not-so-late afternoon are cutting down on the warmth and the strength of the sun. It is almost winter, almost cold - almost.

We would like to think that the lights of trees, the outdoor displays, would do away with the darkness that surrounds us. It seems for a while to cause us to want to be helpful to the needy, the present-less, the homeless. More than coins hit the kettles of the Salvation Army collection tripods. Yet we know that next year the same problems - well, you don't have to wait until next year at Christmas, by January the old, the homeless, the hungry, the needy, the present-less will still be there.

The many lights do not make us any more cheerful as we struggle to be nice to the family members we really don't like or agree with, as we try to balance gift giving with credit card paying, as we want to provide warm homes and the tax bills need to be paid before the credit card bills arrive.

If we put on more lights at this time of year to cheer us and get us in the proper spirit to empty our wallets and max out our credit cards (if not there already!), is there really any point to it all? After all, all too soon we'll be storing all the lights away. Is there perhaps a light that really can take away, permanently - I think we would like it to be permanently - permanently take away the gloom, the sadness, the clouds that surround our lives that never seem to end?

John says there is. And his name is Jesus.