(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Light”, originally shared on May 3, 2021. It was the 112th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Would you agree that in our culture needs less
heat and more light right now? Today were going to consider how that Light has
come, and how we can walk in it.
I got
up at dawn and stood in front of a water treatment plant in La Verne the other
day. What does a water treatment plant have to do with the rising of the sun? Let’s
look.
In the Bible’s first chapter, in the book of Genesis, we read about the
Creation of all things in 6 days. We read this about what happened on the 4th
day, in the first chapter, starting at the 14th verse
Paul, unknown hundreds, maybe even thousands of years later, writes, in
his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, the 4th chapter,
starting at the 5th verse:
God created light before there was the physical light of the sun and
stars and the reflected light of the moon. Starting with the 3rd
verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, we read: Then God said,
“Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good;
and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the
darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the
first day.”
Let’s think about that for a minute. There was light for three days of
Creation before there were any physical sources of light. Three days of light
before there were any physical sources of light!
That light that existed before there were any physical sources of light was
the light of God.
The Bible also uses light as a metaphor for the new life in Jesus
Christ. It is not something we achieve but something we receive. It is the
light of God that shines in our hearts.
The goal of some religions is to achieve personal illumination. In
Christianity, Jesus is the illumination. Jesus is the way, the
truth and the life, not something that is achieved by the spiritually evolved. Spiritual
wisdom is not something we achieve it is something we receive.
In the Gospel of John, in the first verses of the first chapter, which
describe Jesus as the logos or the “Word”, we read:
*John 1:1-5
Later in the Gospel of John, the 8th chapter, the 12th
verse, we read: Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of
the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the
light of life.”
Jesus is the light of the world. What does light do?
Light overcomes the darkness. It keeps us from stumbling, shows us the
way things are and not the way they are in our fears. Light removes the unknown
and makes navigating the known manageable. It provides security against the
forces that oppose God and would destroy us.
How was the beginning of Jesus public ministry described in the Bible?
In Matthew 4, starting at the 12th verse, quoting the prophet
Isaiah:
The good news of Jesus Christ is for everybody, Jew and Gentile alike.
“and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light as dawned.”
That’s a pretty significant announcement!
We are not the light, like the sun. We are
like the moon, reflectors of the light. What light we reflect is not the light
that we have achieved, but the light that we have received.
Jesus encourages us to let that light shine.
In Matthew’s Gospel, the 5th
chapter, starting at the 14th verse, Jesus says: “You are the
light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting
a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives
light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others,
so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
What light we are is because of the light of
Christ within us. That light is reflected from within us.
We don’t have to be anything but who we are
in Jesus Christ for the world to see the light that comes from within us. It
doesn’t take a lot of light, like salt and leaven, to change the larger whole.
How much of a recipe is salt by volume? Even
a salty dish might be, what, 5% and it can be tasted? How much of a recipe is
leaven by volume, and it rises the whole loaf? Maybe 1%?
How much of a room needs to be light for it
to be seen? Any light, any light at all, makes a difference that can be seen.
In each case, it doesn’t take much.
But all of those things must be what they
are. They must retain their character or they are utterly worthless.
Paul writes these words of counsel to the
church at Ephesus, the Ephesians, the 5th chapter, the 8th
and 9th verses. “For once you were darkness, but now in the
Lord you are light. Live as children of light—for the fruit of the light is
found in all that is good and right and true”
Oh, and what does a water treatment plant have to do with the light?
Streams of living water, one of the Bible’s principle metaphors for the Holy
Spirit, filters out the impurities through repentance and the forgiveness of
sin and makes of us a place where the light of God can dwell and be reflected. It’s
like the batteries in this flashlight. They power the light that the flashlight
reflects.
In the first letter of John, the first chapter, the 7th
verse, John writes: “but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us
from all sin.”
No amount of darkness can overcome the light. Any amount of light
overcomes the darkness. It just has to be light. We don’t achieve the light of
God. We receive the light. And reflect it to the world. We just have to reflect
that light.
We began with the Bible’s first book, Genesis. In its last, Revelation,
John’s witness of the heavenly city is this in the 21st chapter, the
23rd verse: “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on
it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
Let us live in that light, walk in its character as light, and may it be reflected into every dark place.
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