We've all had the experience...
Illustration
We've all had the experience of sitting in a darkened theater. Nothing seems quite so dark. They build them that way -- at least the good theaters. Not a chink of light is permitted to intrude on the dramatic experience.
The audience sits impatiently: chattering, grumbling, and fidgeting. Then it happens. The lights blink on and off a few times, then go down for good. Conversations break off in mid-sentence. All eyes gaze ahead, straining into the blackness, trying to discern something on the stage. There is hushed silence, expectation.
Far up in one of the distant galleries, a technician throws a switch, sending thousands of watts surging through a light-bulb filament. Instantly, a beam of light leaps forward, illuminating a circle of space on the stage. Inside the circle is an actor, who a moment before had been silently anonymous. Now, every eye in the house is focused on that stage figure.
The spotlight did it all. Before the switch was thrown, darkness was everywhere. An instant later ... brilliant illumination! That vision of a spotlight piercing the darkness is a good one for these days after Christmas. It's a time for remembering the "great light" of Jesus Christ that has pierced the darkness of human sin.
The audience sits impatiently: chattering, grumbling, and fidgeting. Then it happens. The lights blink on and off a few times, then go down for good. Conversations break off in mid-sentence. All eyes gaze ahead, straining into the blackness, trying to discern something on the stage. There is hushed silence, expectation.
Far up in one of the distant galleries, a technician throws a switch, sending thousands of watts surging through a light-bulb filament. Instantly, a beam of light leaps forward, illuminating a circle of space on the stage. Inside the circle is an actor, who a moment before had been silently anonymous. Now, every eye in the house is focused on that stage figure.
The spotlight did it all. Before the switch was thrown, darkness was everywhere. An instant later ... brilliant illumination! That vision of a spotlight piercing the darkness is a good one for these days after Christmas. It's a time for remembering the "great light" of Jesus Christ that has pierced the darkness of human sin.
