Light and Darkness have been biblical themes from the very beginning. What is the first thing God created? Light. Genesis 1 teaches us that the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep. Then God spoke, Let there be light and there was light (Gen 1:3). I find it interesting that the first thing God created was light. He could have created a lot of things first, but even before he created humanity, he created light. God wants us to live in light. Without light life is not happening. But what does light represent from a biblical perspective?
First, Light symbolizes righteousness/holiness of God
We see this from the creation that I just mentioned. But the scriptures of the OT make this symbolism of light with God in several places. Let’s look at 2-3 of them.
Ps 27 The Lord is MY Light and Salvation whom shall I fear?
Is 60 The Lord will be your Everlasting Light… Focus is on Everlasting… as in all earthly lights were expire or die out, even the most brilliant light, the sun and moon, but they too will one day end. But God is the Everlasting Light who never fades.
Micah 7:8 When I sit in darkness the Lord will be light to me. Parallels Ps 139:12 Even the darkness is Light to you…even the darkness will not be dark to you.
I John1: 5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all
God is light and in Him there is no darkness… nothing shadowy or even a hint of evil or sinfulness in God He is absolute truth and love. God can be fully trusted because He is totally consistent in His attributes and never changing in His holy character. John even goes so far as to say that God is love. So, light symbolizes the righteousness/holiness of God.
Second, Light symbolizes Revealed Truth of God’s salvation
Have you seen these letters on Billboards of Facebook posts? IYKYK
A clergy friend posted those letters, and I thought he was speaking another language. I had no idea what it meant. When you don’t know something, we often use the phrase, “I was in the dark”. The irony is that the letters mean If You Know You Know. The problem was I didn’t know. It means you did not have the information you need to complete a task or to operate a piece of machinery. Or even more importantly the truth of God’s plan of salvation for the world, the whole world. Again, God is a God of light who reveals his truth to us!
The prophecies surrounding Jesus birth have this symbolism of light and darkness… the old man Simeon shared these words when Jesus was presented in the Temple: 29“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: 32 a LIGHT of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” Luke 2:29-32
Simeon is telling us that Jesus is going to be the light of God’s revelation to the Gentile world…or as Isaiah put it…the people sitting in darkness have seen a great light! Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God’s light to the world!
If you go back to the gospel of John chapter 1, you see the familiar words like Genesis 1. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. Don’t you think John knew Genesis? Sure thing, right? Then John goes on to say… 4 In him was life, and that life was the LIGHT of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The last verse is hard to translate. There are several different versions: The darkness did not comprehend it… did not understand it… did not grasp it… But the greater meaning is that light wins. Light overcomes! Light will absorb or dissipate the darkness!
I was reading recently about light being everywhere. It is light that cannot be seen because it is crowded out by darkness. If you have ever been down a mine and my father was a coal miner for part of his life and if you go inside a mine and turn off your light, you may feel like you have experienced total darkness. But quantum physics has found that you are in fact surrounded by light you cannot see, for true darkness “does not exist”. Light particles—photons—exist throughout the known universe and beyond it.
But light is not just talking about the physical universe. This light is symbolizing the holy love of God penetrating the evil and sinfulness of our world. It is the light of healing in our brokenness. It is the light of wisdom in our ignorance. It is the light of salvation and deliverance in our captivity to sin! It is the light of life opening the tomb of death!
Wesley in his great hymn, And Can It Be portrays this so powerfully, Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night…Then…wait for it…Thine eye diffused a quickening ray…I woke the dungeon filled with LIGHT… my chains fell off… my heart was free. I rose went forth and followed Thee.
That is the story of everyone of us here today. We were captives imprisoned by our own sinful desires. Christ’s light broke into our dark dungeon and set us free! Alleluia! Yes, I once was lost but now I’m found, twas blind but now I see! I can see because the light of Christ has penetrated my darkness!
The miraculous acts of Jesus portray His light breaking into our world. If you look at the message and mission of Jesus what you find in every gospel is blind eyes opened, crippled people walking, captives being set free, and the dead being raised to life. This is the good news that light has come into darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it!! And finally, we know how this story ends.
Revelation ends with the consummation of time with a new heaven and earth and guess what? God is the Light of the heavenly city… no sun will be needed. And there is no night there! (Rev 22)
So first, we must recognize and accept who Jesus is when Jesus said….I am the Light of the world. He reveals the righteousness of God. He reveals the truth of God’s salvation to the world held in darkness.
But this verse goes a little bit further. It speaks to our position as Christians and how we live. After Jesus said, “I am the light of the world… he immediately said…
Those who follow Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Yet I wonder how clearly and consistently this light of Christ is being reflected in us?
If were to ask you today, What is the darkest time you have ever experienced? What would you say? Some of you have been in combat zones and times or war. Others have been through experiences of divorce or the untimely death of a closed loved one. Maybe you have faced financial bankruptcy or failure. Still others may have lost their job and had to start over. Maybe some have even struggled with mental illness or anxiety disorders that have taken you to dark places. I recall the most difficult year I have faced was at age 18. My parents divorced when I was a freshman in high school. I stayed with my father who was physically disabled. He died right after graduation of high school. We lost our home. I lost direction in life and wondered for months and prayed through many uncertainties. I felt like the guy who had fallen off the cliff and was hanging on to a little tree for dear life! He called out for help for a while yelling, “Help, is there anyone up there?” Finally, a voice came from the top of the hill saying, “This is God…let go of your tree and I will be there to catch you!” The man yelled back… “Are you sure Lord? It’s a long way to the bottom of this cliff!” And God said again, “Let go and it will be alright! The man hesitated and then yelled back and said, “Is there anybody else up there?” Often, we find ourselves in deeper struggles because we do not respond to God but try to save ourselves and wind up in greater darkness!
Perhaps this might be a negative symbolism…but if were to ask you, “Are you following Christ?” Som of you may say, “Yes, I am tonight… not sure about tomorrow… maybe Sunday not sure about Wednesday”. It’s very inconsistent. God might be telling me to do something…And I’m again saying, “Is there anybody else up there?”
One commentator put it like this: Following Jesus is the condition of two promises in John 8:12. First, His followers will never walk in darkness, which is a reference to the assurance of salvation we enjoy. As true followers of the Light, we will never follow the ways of sin, never live in a state of continually sinning (1 John 1:5–7). Rather, we repent of our sin in order to stay close to the Light.
The second promise is that we will reflect the Light of Life. Just as He came as the Light of the world, He commands us to be “lights,” too. In Matthew 5:14–16 we see believers depicted as the light of the world. Just as the moon has no light of its own, reflecting the light of the sun, so are believers to reflect the Light of Christ so that all can see it in us.
So if I could put these verses together…It means that if we have Christ the Light of the World in us…we will be true reflections of God’s righteousness and God’s revealed truth in the world.
2 Primary ways this happens: Our conversation and our character
Our conversation We hear these words from scripture:
Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth… but only that which is helpful for building up others…
Philippians 2:14 Do everything without complaining or arguing… without fault in a crooked and perverse generation in which you shine like stars in the universe…
I like this verse from Philippians because it gives the imagery of our being stars in the night sky. Our conversation clearly identifies us as having Christ’s light in us! Just like you can look up at the night sky and see the Big Dipper…people know we have Christ’s light in us by the words we speak or in some cases the foul words we do not speak!
Will Rogers put it like this Live in such a way that you would not be afraid to sell your pet parrot to the town gossip. Will Rogers…
Proverbs reminds us that in the tongue is the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21) And Jesus said, “By your words you will be justified and condemned” (Matthew 12:37)
We greatly reflect God’s light in how we speak to each other even when there must be a “come to Jesus meeting” and issues must be addressed, even when we do not agree with others… There is still a great witness in how we have our conversation that either reflects God’s light or simply allows more darkness to expand.
There is real pervasive darkness in our conversations and rhetoric or words spoken in our culture. It has added a great deal to our social problems and more personally I think family problems for many. The language and vocabulary is dark and negative and unnecessary in too many cases. Hear this again, Jesus said… those who follow me will not walk in darkness… we are not to expand darkness in our conversations…but bring God’s light.
I want to say on this Mother’s Day…I honor my mother who spoke words of light and life to me. Even in times of discipline and correction, she let wholesome words come out of her mouth. And when unwholesome words came out of my mouth, she would not tolerate it. It was quickly addressed. I believe many of our problems today would be greatly helped by offering words that encourage and bring life, not words that defame or demean others. Let our words be light and life. We can speak the truth in love. This is how God speaks to us! We bring light to others in our conversation.
The other way we reflect Christ’s light is: Our character.
Our character is how we choose to live our lives and the moral content that is consistently displayed in all circumstances. While we are not God, if we have Christ in us, we are called to live consistently as holy people. Character matters, and it matters especially to those who are closest to us. Integrity happens when our words and actions match each other. It is doing the right thing when no one is watching! It seeks to bring out the best in others even when sacrifices must be made or when love must be tough to discipline or when correction is needed.
Again, honoring mothers today. I quoted from the book of I Timothy in the newsletter. Paul writes Timothy commenting on how his grandmother Lois and mother Eunice modeled faith for Timothy. They instilled values in his life from an early age.
I really like what John Maxwell said about this, If you are successful, it becomes possible for you to leave an inheritance for others. But if you desire to create a legacy, then you need to leave something IN others. When you think unselfishly and invest in others, you gain the opportunity to create a legacy that will outlive you. John Maxwell
Now I think I could go around the room today and nearly all of us would say…your mother may not have left you an inheritance…but she left something IN you much more important…matters of faith and values…moral character…and a greater sense of what is right and wrong, or ethical behavior. But this was all given through love. The greatest light we reflect is the light of Christ’s love given especially to the next generation. And that is why I think it is so important to honor mother’s, especially those who are reflecting the light of Christ in our homes and in our world.
In his book Hidden in Plain Sight: The Secret of More, author and pastor Mark Buchanan illustrates God’s love through the story of Tracy. He writes: Tracy is one of the worship leaders at our church. One Sunday, as she sat at the piano, she talked about the difficult week she’d just been through. It was chaotic, she said—a mess of petty crises on top of a rash of minor accidents, all mixed up in a soup can of crazy busyness. It had left her weary and cranky. She got up that Sunday to lead worship and felt spent, with nothing more to give.
However, Tracy’s 8-year-old daughter, Brenna, helped her gain new perspective earlier that morning. When Tracy had walked into the living room, the window was covered with scrawl. Using a crayon, Brenna had scribbled something across the picture window, top to bottom and side to side.
At first, it seemed like one more mess for Tracy to clean up. Then she saw what Brenna had written: love, joy, peace, patience, kindnece, goodnece, faithfulnece, gentlnece and selfcantrol (in Brenna’s delightful spelling).
Mark writes: “Tracy stopped, drank it in. Her heart flooded with light. It was exactly what she needed to be reminded about: the gift of the fruit of the Spirit that arises, not by our circumstances, but by Christ within us.
And then Tracy noticed one more thing Brenna had written at the edge of the window: Love one another. Only Brenna, in her creative spelling, had written: “Love won another.” Where did Tracy get that information. How did she know? Through her mother!
As Mark concludes: “It’s what Jesus has been trying to tell us all along. You were won that way. Now go and do likewise.” I think this is what it means to be light in our world. That is how Jesus was light in the world. That is how we are to be light in the world!