This “Most High” that Zechariah mentions comes not in a cloud of glory, but as a vulnerable child, with an ordinary family, in a cold stable. That is the kind of God we have. This babe in a manger brings light to those in darkness and takes away all my sins, doing away with the power of evil.
Zechariah’s song is very much ours. We see the faint light on the horizon, and we await the full, dazzling light of God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. We find ourselves now in-between, standing in that moment of the already and the not-yet. The light has dawned but doesn’t seem yet to have reached the deepest darkness inside and around us. This is the movement Christmas calls us to make. To embrace the light of Christ and diffuse the darkness of sin.