Fireworks – the Light of the World

I found myself transfixed by the loveliness of the fireworks display we went to see on Saturday night – part of my enjoyment came from good memories of watching firework displays as a child, and it was wonderful to be building into our family life the rituals associated with Bonfire night – bangers and mash, wearing practically every layer of clothing you own to go out into the cold, dark night and stand in front of an enormous blazing fire and then craning your head back to look up as the bangs, whistles, crackles and screams of the fireworks precede the explosions of colour and light against the blue black sky.

So part of it is childhood memories, but I think there is something intrinsically childlike about enjoying them as a thrilling, sensational experience. At a public display there's none of the danger I've felt at displays in someone's garden, so the sensations are not tainted by fear and thus quite pure. Beauty and excitement and loudness and cold are all present at the same time, and I stood in that moment really experiencing all of them.

We are so used to thinking of Jesus, the Light of the World, as a tame candle (sometimes sputtering and refusing to light, sometimes spilling hot wax on unsuspecting hands but mostly burning serenely and prettily on the side). Since Saturday night I've been thinking of Him as a firework – disruptive, thrilling, attention-grabbing, unpredictable, beautiful, transfixing...