A Christmas message from the next Dean of Wakefield, The Revd Canon Dr Philip Hobday

Do you know where all the light switches are in your house? And what they switch on/off?

We spent a good amount of time in our current home being bamboozled by an outside light which seemed to turn on and off at will. Even more confusingly, there was a light switch in the garage with ‘OUTSIDE LIGHT’ written on it in big black marker pen – which seemed to have no effect on said light, whichever way you flicked it.

And I gritted my teeth as I explained to the landlord and then the electrician that I had indeed already tried, several times, flicking said switch to see what would happen…

How irritated we get when lights don’t work. We’re used to electricity on demand, whenever and wherever we want it; hence the phrase the flick of a switch, meaning instantaneous. This Christmas we might think particularly of those who lack even this basic essential of modern life, those in Ukraine enduring yet another winter amid the hardship inflicted by their autocratic neighbour, or those at home who struggle to make ends meet.

Perhaps even more powerfully, light is an image or metaphor: we associate it with warmth, clarity, even happiness. Some people light up a room with their mere presence; a lightbulb moment is a sudden breakthrough in our understanding; the child’s eyes light up when they see Father Christmas or unwrap a present. Can we, this Christmas, be a bearer of light to someone else? Someone perhaps we know who is lonely, or struggling, or unwell?

Although we now have electricity, then, and all sorts of devices and appliances emit light in our homes and shops and schools and workplaces, light still has a broader meaning. And its broadest, deepest meaning is of course made clear each Christmas. Light shines in the literal and metaphorical night, as a family beds down amid animals and feed, as angels sing out over the hills, as wise men pursue a crazy errand in the starlight. All point us toward the ultimate source of hope and joy and meaning: the God whose light bursts through the darknesses of our hearts and our world; the Baby of Bethlehem who longs to shed light on our confused, anxious lives; the Light of the World who shines as clearly this year as he did two thousand years ago. Happy Christmas to you all.