Forty years ago this Christmas, my wife and I created some home-made Christmas cards. We dripped some red wax on the cover in the form of a candle, glued on some small sprigs of cedar, and then painted a flame on each candle. Inside we included a verse from the Gospel of John: “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)
I remember making the choice to use a translation which included the word “overcome” instead of “comprehend,” as in the King James Version. I was a new christian and I wanted to proclaim that the light of Jesus was more powerful than the darkness of the world. I was picturing light and darkness in a battle, with the victory ultimately going to the light. In that view it is essential to choose the side of Jesus and of the light.
During the past forty years I have begun to see things differently and so the cards we sent out this year included the same verse but in a different translation, opting for “comprehend.”
Light doesn’t seek to defeat the darkness, but to enter into the darkness and be welcomed by that darkness, not only as a flash of lightning but also as an abiding flame. Light seeks to be comprehended and not to overcome.
In the general course of events, the darkness does not welcome the light inside. As John says a little later on in his gospel, “The light has come into the world and the people loved darkness rather than light.” (John 3:19)
So the miracle of Christmas is not so much that the light has come into the world but that, here and there, darkness has welcomed the light in to stay, has “comprehended” it. John talks about it this way, “He came to his own, but his own did not receive him, but to all who did receive him … he gave the power to become children of God.” (John 1:11-12)
Christmas is about shining and comprehending, about the flash and the flame, about the coming of the Son of God and becoming children of God. As we pray when we sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: “O holy child of Bethlehem … enter in, be born in us today.”
