You can’t see it with your naked eye, but as you read this you are surrounded by the remnant light left over from the Big Bang, the advent of our universe nearly 14 billion years ago. This microwave radiation fills the universe and can be detected everywhere. Were it visible to the human eye, “the entire sky would glow with a brightness that was astonishingly uniform in every direction.”1

What’s true about our perception of microwave radiation may be true about our daily lives as well—the light that’s there all around us can be hard to see. Preoccupied by the darkness that we encounter each day—strained and broken relationships, the stress and struggle of daily existence, greed and corruption, divisive politics, and culture wars—it can be easy to miss the light of love and goodness that surrounds us.

For some, this Advent season is a time of joy and festivity. For others, a time of sadness and stress. For most, it is a stew of all these and other feelings. But, for all, it is a reminder that our lives are bathed in the Light of Love and Hope that comes from the One who birthed a universe, then drew even nearer in a birth in a manger. A love that spans the entire cosmos, but is as near as your fingertips, as near as the beating of love in your own heart.

 

1 https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html

 

Image: Discovery & Faith’s latest creation, the “Love Came Down” light circuit