Why the Lights of Christmas Change Everything

Christmas lights do something to us.

They produce a reaction. It’s not just, “Oh, that’s pretty.” There is something deeper going on. Light changes how we feel. It changes the atmosphere of a room. It changes the way we experience space.

For most of human history, people have stared into fires. Anthropologists sometimes call fire “bush television.” Humans have been doing this for thousands of years — or longer, depending on how you read the Bible. There is something about watching flames dance that draws us in, something that holds our attention and settles us. Light has always mattered to us at a deep level.

Darkness matters too.

We know this intuitively. It is hard to sleep if it is not dark. When people travel internationally, they are told to manage light carefully because light triggers the brain in powerful ways. In places like Tasmania — and even more so in places like Canada — there is something called seasonal affective disorder. When there is less light in the day, it does not just change the environment; it affects people’s emotional worlds.

Light is not superficial. It is profound.

Why Christmas Lights Took Hold

That is part of why Christmas lights have become such an important part of Christmas. Historically, people brought trees inside and placed candles on them. We do not have all the fire records, but we can be fairly sure that caused problems over the years. The first electrically lit Christmas tree appeared in 1882, created by Edward Johnson, a colleague of Thomas Edison (below). That moment changed the story of Christmas lights forever.

But Christmas lights matter for a deeper reason.

They remind us that light can — and does — come to us in the darkness.

The Darkness We See Around Us

Darkness is a lived experience. You do not have to look far to see it. Turn on the television or scroll through social media and you will find division, anger, war, poverty, corruption, self-interest, and sickness. One of the most challenging things a sane person can do is take an honest look at the real world. And when we do, one of the healthiest responses we can have is sadness. That sadness is not weakness; it is often the honest response of a sane person to the world as it really is.

But the darkness is not only out there.

For all of us, sometimes the darkness is in here. Fear can cloud our ability to respond to people. Anxiety can leave us constantly on edge, never fully free to engage with life. We all go through periods of grief — when we lose people we love, but also when we lose dreams or a sense of normal we hoped would shape our lives. Grief can feel like a dark blanket that covers us, and for many people it is hard to move beyond it.

For some of us, the darkness takes the shape of shame. We believe the lies that tell us we are not good enough. We replay memories we are not proud of. Shame can become a darkness that quietly robs us of life.

How Do We Respond to the Darkness?

So what do you do?

What do you do if you look around at the world and all you see is darkness? What do you do if you wake up in the morning, open your eyes, and the darkness still travels with you?

One option is to rage against it. One of the most famous poems of the twentieth century, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas, urges us to fight the darkness with anger:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Rage is his only answer.

Another option is to pretend there is no darkness — to distract ourselves, numb ourselves, or deny what we are actually experiencing.

Light Comes From Outside Us

But the Bible offers a different response.

Isaiah speaks to those who walk in darkness and have no light, calling them to trust in the name of the Lord and rely on their God. The message of the whole Bible is that light comes to us from the outside. It is not something we generate for ourselves.

Isaiah also names what happens when we refuse that reality — when we decide to light our own fires and live by our own strength:

“You who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.”

At first, those words can sound harsh. But what Isaiah is describing is not God being vindictive; it is God being honest. If life is only about my happiness, my will, my power, then life becomes a battle. To meet my needs, I must take from others. To be happy, I must impose my will. And others will do the same to me.

A World Built on Power Never Wins

This is the world Friedrich Nietzsche described. When there is no transcendent reality, all that remains is a battle of wills — survival of the fittest, power deciding truth. Isaiah saw this long before Nietzsche named it.

And this is what we are increasingly seeing around us. As our culture walks away from the big Christian story, we find ourselves in polarisation and power struggles. And in a battle for power, nobody wins. In a dog-eat-dog world, nobody wins.

It is normal, when surrounded by darkness, to want to shake our fists and lash out. But Martin Luther King Jr. was right when he said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

The Promise of Christmas

The promise of the Old Testament was that light would come into the darkness. Isaiah declared that the people walking in darkness would see a great light, that on those living in deep darkness a light would dawn. That promise is what Christmas is about.

When John tells the Christmas story, he tells it through the language of light. “In the beginning was the Word… In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Jesus steps into real history — into pain, grief, fear, and shame — and brings light. He does not say, “Pull your socks up.” He does not tell us to try harder or fix ourselves. He comes and brings light.

“I am the light of the world,” Jesus says. “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus does not just bring light. He is the light. And then he does something extraordinary. He turns to his followers and says, “You are the light of the world.” Light is not only something we receive; it is something we are meant to reflect.

The baby born in Bethlehem was born to be king of a completely different kind of kingdom. Behind the Bible is a completely different paradigm. The normal paradigm — the one the world keeps returning to — is dog-eat-dog, power wins, the strongest survives. When you take the baby out of Bethlehem out of the story of the world, that is all you are left with.

But Christmas interrupts history. It reveals another reality — a kingdom based on love, not coercive power.

The Battle for the Story We Live By

And this is where the battle really is. Christmas is a battle for the story we live by.

It is the same choice every day. Like the moment in The Matrix when two pills are offered, we are always choosing which reality we will live from. There is the ordinary reality, where life is ordered around self-interest, power, and survival. And there is another reality — one shaped by love, revealed at the cross, and embodied in Jesus.

And this is not just an idea to think about. It is a pastoral longing. My prayer this Christmas is that we would do more than rage at the darkness or numb ourselves to it, but that we would be open to discovering there really is another reality — one shaped by love.

Every act of compassion, every moment of grace, every time we choose love over fear becomes a small light in someone else’s night. Jesus does not only shine for us; he longs to shine through us.

Why the Lights Matter

That is why Christmas lights matter.

They remind us that it is not about pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps or trying harder. Light comes to us from beyond us. The light has come. The darkness has not won. And all of us experience darkness — every one of us. Christmas lights quietly remind us that there is beauty, and love, and logic in the world that is far beyond our capacity to create for ourselves, and that we do not face the darkness alone.