“Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”
John 8:12
Among many other wonderful things, the Gospel writers reveal Jesus to be a marvelous teacher, the greatest the world has ever seen. The Lord would often make use of His surroundings, pointing to objects familiar to His hearers in order to help them understand. He pointed to the lilies in His lesson on trusting God to provide (Luke 12:27-28). He spoke of sowing seeds and growing crops as He taught on the ministering of God’s word (Matthew 13:3-23). He pointed to the movement of the wind as analogous to the regenerating presence of the Holy Spirit (John 3:8). He reminded His apostles that He was the vine and they were the branches (John 15:5). Apart from the “vine” that supports and nourishes us, we can do nothing. One day the Lord directed the attention of His hearers to the sun, shining in its brilliance. The ancients were very impressed by the sun. Morning by morning it arose with law-like regularity, flooding the world with light and keeping crops alive. No wonder ancient man had such a problem with sun worship. Jesus compared Himself to the sun blazing in the sky when he announced that He was the true “light of the world.” He is the One who dispels the darkness of ignorance and floods our hearts with love and our minds with understanding. The interesting thing about the sun is that we very rarely gaze directly upon it. When we awaken in the morning, we know the sun is in the sky, not because we see it, but because by its light we see everything else. The same is true of Jesus. We know He is a living reality, not because we see Him directly, but because by Him we are able to interpret our world aright. In other words, the One in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3) provides what is needful for us to think properly, to see things as they truly are. It is the Truth Himself who reveals lesser truths to us. Only the Light of the world can and does give us what is needful to recognize lesser lights. “For with thee is the fountain of life,” wrote David, “in thy light shall we see light” (Psalm 36:9). For those seeing through the eyes of faith, His action in the world, and in us, is undeniable. The Lord’s invisibility in the present hour means little for those of us who are the recipients of His saving grace. We not only believe in Christ to the saving of our souls, but we love this One Whom we cannot now see. In this we “rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). May the Lord continue to guide our paths and enlighten our minds, and may our love and appreciation for the Savior be a bold and irresistible witness to our world today.
God bless you today, dear saints,
Pastor John
English