At baptisms, we give each newly baptised person a lighted candle and say that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light. Then we say, “You have received the light of Christ; walk in this light all the days of your life. Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.” We do this because Jesus said: ‘I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness’ (John 12.44-end).
What does it mean that Jesus comes as light so we do not remain in darkness? The light of Christ is revelatory as it reveals the good and bad in our lives and communities. Light reveals those things that have been hidden so we can see their true nature; whether live-giving or life-denying.
Jesus is God fully revealed in human form, so shows us what God is actually like as well as revealing all that we, as humans, can become. We come into the light of Christ by comparing our lives to his. As we do so, inevitably we find that we fall short; that our capacity to do what pleases him (by living out all goodness, righteousness and truth) is less than his capacity for these things.
Jesus says to Nicodemus (John 3. 19 - 21): “This is how the judgement works: the light has come into the world, but people love the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds are evil. Those who do evil things hate the light and will not come to the light, because they do not want their evil deeds to be shown up. But those who do what is true come to the light in order that the light may show that what they did was in obedience to God.”
In other words, the light of Christ is all about comparisons and transparency. Jesus, through his life and death, shows us the depth of love of which human beings are really capable and, on the basis of that comparison, we come up well short and are in real need of change. In the light of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, we see our inherent selfishness and recognise our need for change.
Our reality, as St Paul so accurately states in Romans 7 is that we are divided people: “… what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” So, coming into the light of Christ initially reveals our fallibilities and failures to be Christ-like. God sees all and Jesus, in his ministry, was able to shine a light on the deepest recesses of the human heart. The Samaritan woman said of him: “Come see the man who told me everything I have ever done” (John 4. 29). With Jesus, nothing is hidden, everything is transparent; therefore, we need to change if we are to truly live in the light of his presence. As a result, if we are to be transparent in the light of Christ, we make our humble confession to Almighty God truly and earnestly repenting of our sins.
But the light of Christ does not just expose and make visible our fallibilities. Jesus came into our world as the Word of God to live a life of self-sacrificial love as a human being. He shows us what true love looks like and he shows us that human beings are capable of true love even when most of the evidence around us seems to point towards the opposite conclusion. In 1 John 5. 20 we read that “the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we know the true God.”
When we learn what pleases our Lord (which is all goodness, righteousness and truth; or, as our confession says, intending to lead a new life by following the commandments of God, walking in his holy ways and living in love and charity with our neighbours) we are then illuminated by him and become a light to others. This is what Jesus means when he tells us to let our light shine before others, that they may see our good deeds and glorify our Father in heaven.
Just as with those newly baptised people receiving a lighted candle and being reminded that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light, today we too hear Jesus say ‘I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.’ Like them, we have received the light of Christ and are called to walk in this light all the days of our lives. So, may we shine as lights in the world to the glory of God the Father. Amen.
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The Call - The Morning.
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