Last summer, my son and I backpacked through a portion of the Sierra Nevada, the massive mountain range that cuts through heart of California south of San Francisco.  The morning of the first full day of our trip, we rose extra early to prepare for what we expected to be a lengthy hike to the base of a pass which we intended to surmount the following day.  When we got out of our tent, the sun had not yet risen over the peaks below which we were camped.  The air was still cold, the lake basin by which we had pitched our tent still shrouded in shadow.  So we waited.
     For what did we wait?  We waited for the sunrise, the sun, that brilliant and life giving orb of light to rise over the peaks and bathe our camp in warmth and radiance.  As we waited, we packed up our camp, prepared breakfast, and got ready to go.
      Then it came.  Exploding atop the ridge, the sun burst, popping with rays of brilliance and wonder, its multiple filaments of splendor spreading over and across the waiting land.  We rejoiced:  the light had come.
     "For the people who walk in darkness," wrote the prophet Isaiah, "will see a great light (Isaiah 9:1)."  Isaiah speaks of Messiah, the one who would come to illuminate an Israel darkened by disappointment, abandonment, and sin.  He speaks of the Christ who would enlighten and save all those who longed for him.  He speaks of the light that would come.
     On the third Sunday of Advent, we remember this fact of Messiah's light, how, like the sun exploding over a frigid mountain ridge, Messiah--Jesus--has brought us light, the light of enlightenment, the light of hope and meaning that shines through the cold of an often Munchian (The Scream:  check my blog on Friday) existence.  It is the light of purpose, the light of meaning, the light that, if we embrace it, embrace it as fervently as we do the warmth of the sunrises, mountain or not, of our lives, will change our lives forever.
     Once we touch this light, we'll never be the same.