A story on the theme of Isaiah 9.2, 6-7

Title: “Jesus, Light of the World”

Theme:  Jesus is the Father's gift to our dark world and our needy hearts

Change the names and genders and parental configurations as works best for your context.

Bethany bumped her head into the piano -- very hard. “Ouch! That hurt.” But she couldn’t see a thing and for a minute couldn’t quite figure out where she was in the house. She was afraid to move, to step on the presents, or knock over the tree.

Her whole family was there for Christmas. They had just enjoyed a wonderful dinner and were about to open presents. They were feeling very snug together because a big storm was blowing outside and they were safe and warm -- that was until there was a big flash of lightning and a huge crash of thunder and the lights went out. It was pitch black. They looked outside, but their neighborhood was dark, too. Inside the house, people were trying to move around to find some lights, but they were bumping into the furniture and into each other. Finally she heard her dad call out to everyone to stay where they were. People settled back down and her dad began to throw out some ideas about what they should do. There were candles all around them, but they had put out the ones at the table and hadn’t lit the ones in the living room and no one could seem to find a match. Her brother, Tim, volunteered to go get the flashlight in the hallway, the one plugged into the wall until he remembered that he had used it yesterday until the battery was empty and he hadn’t plugged it back in to recharge it.

There were flashlights out in her aunt’s and uncle’s cars, but it was pouring outside and they would have gotten soaked. Just then Bethany had an idea. She remembered that in a little pocket on the outside of the sleeping bag storage bag that she had just gotten with her sleepover sleeping bag, there was a little flashlight that you strapped around your forehead to light your way even if your hands were full. 

Her head had cleared a little since she had bumped into the piano. She realize that she was standing in the hallway leading to her bedroom. There was nothing to bump into in the hallway except the walls and so with her hands out in front of her, she inched down the hallway into her room. She knew her room by heart and knew right where the sleeping bag was stored. She walked slowly over in that direction. Oh, she bumped into the bed and trip over some clothes that she should have hung up. But then, she found the little pocket on the outside of the sleeping bag storage bag and slipped her hand in to find the flashlight. She tried the switch. It worked! She strapped the light around her head and proudly walked back down the hallway without bumping into anything and into the living room where the adults were still sitting in the dark trying to figure out what to do. They clapped when she appeared and soon one or two adults at a time were following her around the house to find matches for candles or flashlights hidden in drawers. As she moved around the house it became brighter and brighter. The candles were lit in the living room and the fun of opening presents began.

As she sat quietly, very pleased that she had brought the first light into their dark house, she remembered some Bible verses that had been recited in the Christmas program at church, something about “people who lived in darkness who saw a light” and one about Jesus who was “the light of the world. She wondered, if when Jesus was born, people felt like her family had when she, just a little girl, walked into the room with that first light in the darkness?