Ephesians 5:8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. [NIV]

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I’ve mentioned before that words spark thought for me.  Today was an interesting variation on that.  I read verse eight several times before I realized I’d been subconsciously adding the word [IN] before the word “darkness.” Dropping the [IN] and reading “you were once darkness” changed my whole perspective on what I’d read.  It has reminded me this Word is not only timeless but it’s still alive and well. Darkness is not a place I was “IN”  but the far more ugly reality of “what I was.”  It says it right there but I missed it.

I re-read those verses thankful for the specific words of hope I found there, words like “now you are light in the Lord” and “the fruit of the light.”  The emphasis on “WHAT I was” [darkness] has now been dramatically changed because of God’s intervention through Jesus in my life to “what I WAS” [past tense].  “Once darkness” was changed to “the fruit of the light” and that is the joyful connection to Advent I share with you in December, 2020.

That first “Advent” in Bethlehem was God’s intervention in the world He’d created.  His choice was to make Himself visible once more to redeem His people and free them from their dependence on their own best efforts to dispel the darkness that plagued their lives.  Jesus was born to reveal God’s promise to ordinary people who were “once darkness.”  The “Advent of Light” could forever change their emphasis from knowing “there was GOD” [hope] into the new reality that “God was THERE!”

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel