This last Sunday morning, as our church celebrated Christmas by worshipping to many of our famous carols, we sang the third verse to Silent Night."Silent night, holy night.
Son of God, love's pure light."
I had never noticed the apostrophe in the word "love's" before. I had always thought that it was the conjugated verb, to love. I had thought it meant that the Son of God was in love with pure light.
But this missed the point of the line and what makes the whole verse a theological gem.
You see, love is meant as a noun. And the noun is a metaphor for God Himself. "God is love," John tells us in his first epistle.
The Son of God is "Love's pure light." As it says in Hebrews 1: 3, "The Son is the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his being..."
Read it with the rest of the verse:
"Son of God, love's pure light.
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth."
Jesus, at his birth, is like the dawning of the rising sun. God radiates his presence through the Son.
"...the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace" (Luke 1: 78b-79).
Good point.I think that if the church focused more on the nature of Jesus and God, and the depth of his love for us, a lot more people would be finding faith rather than leaving it behind. Loving the blogs! Will keep reading if you keep writing!
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