On Light
“Your calling is to walk like Christ – to be light entering the doorway.”
Ben Dockery | Est. 4-5 minutes
On Light
“First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke, ‘Light.’” (Genesis 1:1 MSG)
In the beginning, God used his first creative words to manufacture light. Themes of light flood the advent season. You might still carry the images from the Christmas Eve candlelight service.
Light continues to capture the imagination of every genre of biblical writing. Sometimes it is the literal burning oil in a temple lamp. Elsewhere light symbolically assists God’s people to see their righteous role for the rest of the world. We will explore four aspects of light that run throughout the biblical text: nature, symbol, calling, and non-hiddenness.
Nature: Light is more than a metaphor
God spoke light into existence, yet it remains a mystery. Physicist David Park wrote a historical essay on the nature and meaning of light, The Fire within the Eye, (1997, Princeton Press). Park traces hisorical understandings about light and explores modern developments related to the human capacity of sight. If you struggle with insomnia – this book might be helpful – kidding! Admittedly, it was far too technical for my untrained mind to fully grasp, but the fascinating origin to his research stems from this Augustine quote, “True light is not a literary metaphor, one does not say that Christ is light in the same way we say Christ is a rock. The second is a figure of speech, but the first is literal.”[1]
Augustine seems to say Jesus is light, full stop. He sounds like the apostle John: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him (I John 1:5). You also hear echos of the Nicene Creed (we believe Jesus is…), “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” The line between light as a physical reality (physics) and a spiritual reality (metaphysics) might be thinner than first glance. [2]
Even if you don’t take a deep dive into the physical properties of light, you can stop and wonder at a world of light. Light allows us to see.
Symbol: Light is not less than a metaphor
We literally see by light. We also…literarily see by light. The Christian imagination is a way of reading or seeing the world as God sees the world – not simply as it presents itself.
C. S. Lewis established a most memorable explanation of light as a way of seeing in his essay, “Meditations in a Toolshed”. Enjoy his way with words:
“I was standing today in a dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through a crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.
Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead, I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, ninety-odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam and looking at the beam are very different experiences.”[3]
Later in the essay, Lewis shares that he believes in Christianity like he believes in the sun – not only because he sees it, but by it, he sees everything else. This is clear in his own life as he “sees” his work as literary scholar or personally as he “sees” the death of his wife through Christian categories.
Calling: Walk in the light
The third aspect connects light and Christian calling. The effect of light is not just to have us see (literally and symbolically), but to allow us to walk. John Stott suggests we walk in the light (I John 1:7) with a concern toward right conduct, or righteousness, not just clear vision.[4] In this passage, two metaphors collide.
Walking is a transcultural human experience. It has its own pace, 3mph. Individuals have their own stride and gait. The Bible uses the metaphor of walking (a path or direction) almost 700 times. One’s walk is synonymous with the way one lives. The routine involves right foot, left foot – right foot, left foot. Mundane, yet efficient. The calling to walk in the light also comes with a unique gait.
John is not talking about walking in a generic ‘light’ – he envisions the walk of Jesus Christ, who claims to be the light of the world. In other words, Jesus identifies himself with the language of Genesis 1 – interrupting the soup of nothingness and bottomless emptiness. It is a remarkable claim at first encounter; but unfortunately, quickly becomes remarkably familiar.
Jesus is the light of the world – mind blown! Shortly later, Jesus is the light of the world - no reaction.
The same can be said of a subsequent claim that you are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). Without you, the world returns to inky blackness. A lamp is needed. Think of the rooms you walk into each day: workplace or school, home or shopping center. Your calling is to walk like Christ – to be light entering the doorway. Don’t allow familiarity with a phrase to blunt your calling.
Non-hiddenness: Light helps Fight Sin
Familiarity is not the only enemy of righteous walking. Sin is an enemy. After eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve’s first move was to hide. They handed you and me that instinct. Sin counters the calling we just discussed. Walking in the light requires ongoing confession to God and one another.
David Taylor demonstrates how we are to live open and unafraid.[5] He suggests, “We hide from others and we hide from ourselves. Ultimately, we hide from God. In our hiding, we choose darkness over light; we embrace death instead of life; we elect to be lonely rather than to be relationally at home with others.”
Sin wants us to remain unknown. It shuns the light.[6]
In confession, however, the light of the gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be openly spoken and acknowledged. You might call this the way of non-hiddenness.
Eighteenth century revivalist, John Wesley, opened small group meetings with a series of qustions. To avoid hiddenness, they asked, “Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?”[7] It is a piercing question that prevents darkness growing in secret.
In other words, light fights sin.
In conclusion, light is not simply the first of God’s creation, but finds a primary place in the closure of God’s plan. We learn Jesus’ light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:4-5). Darkness now waits in defeat. The Bible closes with a vision of the life beyond this life, when we will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun. He himself will be our light.[8]
———————————
[1] I first heard this observation in Mars Hill Audio Journal, Ken Meyers, Vol 29.
[2] David Park, The Fire Within the Eye, Princeton University Press book (1997).
[3] C S Lewis, “Meditations in a Toolshed” (1942), in First and Second Things Essays.
[4] John Stott, The Letters of John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Eerdmans (2007).
[5] David Taylor, Open and Unafraid, Thomas Nelson (2020). He is particularly interested in showing how the Psalms help us to tell our secrets faithfully, which leads us to be open to others.
[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, HarperOne (1978).
[7] Rupert Davies (Ed.) The Works of John Wesley, Vol 9. Abingdon Press, 1989. P. 78. The Band Societies
[8] Revelation 21:23
© Ben Dockery | This article was first published in Lakelight Monthly, December 2023 Edition
