One morning a couple of years ago, while I was backpacking in California's rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range, I got out of my tent to see the sunrise.  I was camped in a lake basin, a lake basin well above timberline.  Trees were few and far between.  The landscape was primarily rock, sculpted and cold granite that oozed out from the water and fusing into the mountains looming above.
     So I waited.  The light slowly rose in the east, its rays illuminating the sky even before the sun's orb surfaced over the highest ridge.  The sky gradually lit up.  Temperatures remained in the thirties and forties.
     Then it came.  Exploding atop the col, the sun burst, dazzling with beams of unfettered 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, the light of meaning that shines through the cold and ennui of an often profoundly befuddling existence.  It is the light of purpose, the light of value, the light of an eternity that, if we embrace it, embrace it as fervently as we do the warmth of a sunrise, mountain or not, of our lives, will change our lives forever.
     Once we touch this light, we'll never be the same.