Jesus as the Light
When I was a teenager, I enjoyed a great relationship with my parents. They didn’t have strict rules about when I had to be home, but there was an expectation that when I was the last one in, I wouldn’t disturb family members who were already asleep with my noise. We lived in an old farm house and some of the stairs were very squeaky so it took some effort to get from the front door up to my bedroom without waking people up.
One night, I was a little later than usual and the house was dark and quiet when I arrived home. I didn’t want to bother anyone so I didn’t turn on any lights. I made it through the living room without crashing into anything and paused at the bottom of the stairs. I knew it would be a challenge to get to the landing without making those old stairs groan and complain. Keeping my feet to the outside of the treads I started up the stairs one by one. It worked quite well. The stairs were noisiest when stepped on in the middle of the tread where they were most worn.
I was sure that I had succeeded in my objective when I took one more step just before getting to the landing. To my surprise, there was no step where I expected it to be and my foot thudded down noisily, I lost my balance and my shoulder hit the wall. Fearful of falling and confused by what had just happened, I raised my foot extra high to clear the step so I wouldn’t trip and brought it down with a mighty thump on the resonant boards of the landing. About then it dawned on me that I had miscounted the steps and had arrived at the landing before I expected.
I held my breath and reoriented myself to go up the last three stairs, but the damage was done. My mother flicked the light on and I blinked in the darkness. “Could you be a little quieter?” she asked, and disappeared into her room.
I suspect that nearly everyone has a story about unfortunate things that happen in the dark. We depend so much on our sense of sight that when it is impaired through lack of light, we smash into doors and walls, we step on toys and tools, we get disoriented and sometimes frightened.
In the Bible, Jesus is described a the light. John the Baptist’s message was that “The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” (John 1:9 NIV) Jesus, Himself, claimed to be the light of the world in John 8:12 and went on to say, “He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” In the next chapter, He went on to say “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (John 9:5)
Light is a complex form of energy which so far has defied simple explanations, but our inability to wrap our minds around it does not hinder us from benefiting from it day by day. Light is the medium by which God sustains life on earth. Without light from the sun, the earth would be frozen solid and life, as we know it, could not exist. This fact makes a compelling argument for light as a metaphor for God in general and the Lord Jesus Christ in particular.
At the same time, there is an interesting twist in this metaphor. Light is invisible, but it allows us to see matter. Jesus, as a man, was visible, but his coming allowed us to “see” the invisible God. Just as bringing a candle or a flashlight into a dark room allows us to get a sense of the room’s size, decoration, furnishings and so on, the coming of Jesus into this spiritually dark world allows us to get a sense of God’s character, personality and purposes.
Jesus, who claimed to be the light of the world, came to reveal God to humanity. Paul stated: “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9) This gives us a hint at how we should respond to Jesus. When we want to catch a glimpse of what God is like in a way that we can understand, we look at Jesus who said: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) It is easy for people to get a warped view of God. Sometimes we pit the Father against the Son. Sometimes we apply a “good cop/bad cop” template to them with the Father as harsh and violent while the Son is gentle and loving. This is a distortion. Father, Son and Spirit are all of the same essence.
Given that Jesus is the light of the world and knowing that He came to reveal God to us in a way we could understand has the effect of drawing us to Him. We can’t know God without Jesus. We can’t approach God without Jesus. We can’t have a relationship with God without Jesus. Maybe it’s time to return to the Gospels, read them with fresh eyes and look particularly for what we can learn about the Father by watching the Son.
Ron Hughes
© July 2006
