Light and Darkness

Psalm 119: 105: Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

I don’t know how you regulate the level of light in your home or place of business or wherever you might find yourself. Some people might need a low level of light, which I prefer. In fact, I need so little light that someone who lives with me calls me, “Cave man.” She does this fondly, of course, although she is decidedly not fond when I turn off the light in a room she’s in. My excuse is that I couldn’t see her for the glare.     I’m sensitive to light, that’s all. And I am pleased to report that our firstborn Amy was called, “Cave woman” at college. I’m proud that she followed in my lightly footsteps.

Becky on the other hand, prefers blinding levels of light, so much so that airplanes going into Dulles can navigate by our dining room lights. And we could do surgery in the kitchen. I think you get the idea.

We all know that life in Bible times was dark, literally and figuratively. And I think that people then were like I am: without strong lights in their lives, they still could walk around with very little light. The scripture passage seems to be only figurative: the Bible is the source of light that guides our ways. But it also literal: when people in Bible times needed to go out at night, they put miniature oil lamps on the toes of their sandals and off they went. They could see very well with those tiny lights.

God has given us light ever since God created it on the first day of creation. And that light continued literally in our lives. But it also presented itself to us as the love of God throughout the ages, finally arriving at the brightest life in creation in the person of Jesus. His life and his death on the cross meant that, as John wrote, “in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Amen.