Natural light

January days are short, and evenings draw in quickly. After the bright sparkle of the Christmas season and the New Year’s fireworks, quiet winter settles around us with its early shadows and dark nights as we shift back to routine and daily life.

This feels fitting. After the vibrant storytelling of the nativity, Love Incarnate, too, steps out of the limelight and into the shelter of family life.

Isn’t limelight a funny, lovely word? It comes from the early days of the nineteenth century when chemists on both sides of the Atlantic were experimenting with a new method for producing bright light. Electric light had been invented but was not yet ubiquitous, and there were other ideas being discovered and developed. Limelight was produced by directing a flame of burning oxygen and hydrogen towards a cylinder of calcium oxide or quicklime. In 1825, Thomas Drummond, a Scottish engineer, further developed this effect using reflectors and lens, so that the bright light might be used by the Ordnance Survey to measure distances accurately.

Limelight was later used in lighthouses and in theatres for its focussed spotlight effect. Initially, it was called the Drummond Light, but as this technology became popular, the name limelight was widely adopted. There is something delightful about that switch of name. Drummond himself slips out of the limelight as the use of his light spreads.

January light is not limelight. It is afternoon sunlight on snow. It is evening candlelight around the family table. It is starlight.

In January, we tell the end of the Christmas story with the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The story that started with angel song makes space for foreigners who travel by natural light. A new star appeared in the sky, and they were curious about it.

Viewed in this light…

We only read about the magi in the gospel of Matthew, and it is interesting to note that this gospel begins with a long genealogy of Jesus that seems to deliberately include the names of his female ancestors who were, likewise, outsiders to the Jewish people.

Just as the rough shepherds were unlikely cradle-side visitors, so these magi – astrologers, perhaps Zoroastrians from Iran – must have surprised Mary and Joseph. They did not know the region or the religious habits of the people, and yet their sense of direction and ability to see this new light led them to find God face-to-face. The gifts they brought showed how clearly they could see him. Gold for a king, frankincense for a priest, myrrh for sacrifice. No angel instructed them, only a star which they interpreted.

We might see the magi’s discovery of the infant Christ as a natural development of their understanding of the world. This is quite different from the shepherds who listened to the angel song.

Seen like this – or I might say, viewed in this light – the story of the magi can remind us to keep our eyes open and to look for God’s presence and love’s incarnation in the quiet light of our everyday January lives.