“Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”

— John 12:36

By this point in John’s gospel, Jesus has declared a couple of times that he is the light of the world. This image is intended to draw us into the creation story, as if to exclaim: “God is making a new creation in Jesus!” This is incredibly good news! God the Father is responding to the long history of human sin and its legacy of darkness with the light of his own Son.

We don’t often focus on this new-creation side of the story at Christmastime. We usually hear about the miraculous events that led to Jesus’ birth, that Jesus is “God with us,” and how the angels and shepherds played their parts in announcing Jesus’ arrival (Matthew 1; Luke 2). But the new-creation side is important too. John’s attention to Jesus as the light in our midst is re-creational language. God is doing something new!

In the passage we are focusing on today, we hear Jesus calling for a decision. Will we believe in him, trusting that he really is God’s light signaling the start of a new creation? Will we become children of that new creation—both as recipients of God’s grace and as family representatives of God’s new creation?

We are invited to remember and celebrate Jesus’ birth as people who are joyfully caught up in the arrival of God’s new creation.

God, thank you for starting a new creation in Jesus. As we remember Jesus’ birth, grow in us a joyful faith and desire to live as your children. Amen.