What Does the Christmas Light Reveal about Your Soul?
Author: Stan Guthrie
December 25, 2025
During our shortened days at this time of the year, people increasingly look for the light. Christmas reflects this universal longing but did not create it.
Diwali, marked this year on October 20th, celebrates the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. One of the most important festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism, participants light lamps, share sweets, and honor prosperity and renewal.
Hanukkah, of course, commemorates the astounding victory of the Jewish people over the pagan King Antiochus Epiphanes in 165 B.C. Antiochus had set up an altar for Zeus in the temple in Jerusalem and even offered swine flesh on the altar.
A small band of Jews organized a guerrilla movement and with God’s help defeated their Hellenist masters. They then cleansed and rededicated the temple, lighting the menorah for eight days as Solomon had done before. The Talmud says that they had only one day’s worth of oil, but the lamp miraculously burned for eight days.
Historically a minor Jewish festival, Hanukkah has evolved into one of the most festive Jewish holidays, perhaps because of its close proximity to Christmas. The beautiful lights of Hanukkah shed light on the physical world, just as God’s Word illuminates the spiritual world.
Yet Christmas talks about another Light, another Word, that not only enlightens us but searches our hearts. No, I am not talking about the heavenly host, which pointed “certain poor shepherds” to the manger. Nor am I thinking about the Star of Bethlehem, which led the magi to the Christ child.
No, the Light I am referring to is a living Person, glimpsed as a baby in Bethlehem, but understood only by some, and often only in hindsight.
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. …The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:4-5, 9-10, 14)
This is the Christmas Light, the living Word becoming flesh, making his dwelling among us, and dazzling those with eyes to see. And not everyone could see the blazing light, because they chose to be spiritually blind.
One Sabbath day Jesus, who was the Christmas Light, healed a blind man. Instead of rejoicing at this clear display of God’s power, those who were spiritually blind—some of the Jewish religious leaders—chose to oppose it. And they demanded that the man who had been healed, who had seen the Christmas Light, oppose it, too. The man, whose eyes had been so recently opened, was unwilling to close them and so was cast out (John 9:26-34).
As unjust as their bullying of the formerly blind man was, it is a natural consequence of the Christmas Light. The Christmas Light shines on our souls, calling us to make a decision. As Jesus said in verse 39, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
This is a season of light, but we don’t often think of the Light of Christmas as shining a spotlight on our own souls. But it does. And the question is, what does it reveal about you?
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