In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and there was darkness over the deep. And God spoke and said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw the light was good. From that moment on, the light coming from God has never failed to shine in the darkness of this world. The creation story tells us that God created two great lights: the greater light for the day, and the lesser light for the night, the sun and the moon, a powerful reminder that even in the darkness of night there is still a light that God has provided for us.
As we look back on history and the ways God has been working in this world, we see God has continued to shine light in the midst of our darkness. Abraham and Sarah, in the darkness of doubt that they experienced, had that light shine upon them. They had given up almost everything: their family and their home on the whim of a promise. With each passing year, it seemed that this promise was growing less and less likely. It was rather a ridiculous promise to begin with, but it got more and more unlikely with each passing year. They began to question and doubt that promise. It was in the middle of the night with a flame that God renewed the covenant with Abraham and gave Abraham the confidence that this was really going to happen, that God was faithful to his promises.
Many generations later when the people were in the darkness of oppression as slaves in Egypt, it was the light from the bush that was on fire that God called Moses to go free the people. And it was a light, a pillar of fire, that led the people out of Egypt and into their liberation.
Again, many generations later when the people were in the darkness of despair in their exile, God sent light to them through the prophets, that light of hope to remind them that the dawn was beginning to break. Hold on—there is light in the midst of this darkness.
In the fullness of time God sent that light to be born in the middle of the night, in a manger in Bethlehem, the light of God, the light of Christ, the Word who brought all things into being.
Genesis begins, “In the beginning”, and John begins, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and through Him all things came into being. What came into being through him was life, and the life was the light of the world, and the darkness shall not overcome it.”
“I am the light,” Jesus proclaimed. It is a powerful reminder that whatever darkness we face, there is that light of God that has been shining since the beginning, the light of God to shine on the path on whatever darkness it is that we are experiencing.
In our Gospel today Jesus takes that a little bit further. Not only is he the light, but he says in the Gospel today that you are the light of the world. That shouldn’t come as a total surprise. We do understand ourselves, as Paul teaches us, to be the body of Christ. Jesus is the light, we are the body of Christ, so we need to be light. But Jesus is explicit here, simply saying to us that you are the light of this world. And if you light a light, you don’t put it under a bushel basket. That’s foolish. That’s dangerous because it could catch fire and burn your house down. But it also takes away the purpose. You shine a light to dissipate the darkness around you, and that is what Jesus is asking us to do: to dissipate the darkness that we experience in this world.
There are two great implications that Jesus is teaching when he says you are the light. The first is that he is telling us to be the light. In all the darkness we experience in this world, God wants us to be light in the midst of it. Whether that is the big communal darkness that we experience, the systemic darkness of war, of poverty, of political machinations, the darkness of racism and sexism, environmental destruction—all the darkness that we are experiencing so acutely, God wants us to shine light in the midst of it. But God also wants us to shine light in the midst of all those small, personal, individual ones that might be a darkness that only we feel, or someone close to us feels. God wants us to be a light in the midst of that darkness of pain, of suffering, of grief, the darkness of depression, the darkness of addiction—all the darknesses that we feel in this life. God is inviting us to shine light when we see that darkness. When you see a friend or a stranger experiencing that darkness, Christ says you are the light. Be the light.
The second implication that Jesus is saying is that if you are experiencing that darkness and you want to find some light, there is a really clear place to go to find it. Just look around this room right now because you are the light. It’s right here next to you. Look around. The light is shining so brightly. I see the light when I look out over this room. I see the light shining in everyone who shines a light by serving a hungry neighbor at the Saturday breakfast, who shines a light for our unhoused neighbors when we open the Egan Warming Center tonight on this cold night. I see that light shining from all of you who cook meals for the sick, those of you who visit and care for the homebound. I see that light shining in all dedicated Sunday School teachers sharing that light with our children. I see that light shining behind me in the choir and in the organ loft, that light, that beauty, that music that lifts up our spirits. I see that light in every kind word and every warm smile that I see out there right now. I see that light right here.
Whenever you need to see a little bit of light in the darkness, just do what I do. Look around this room, because whenever I feel the darkness I come to you, and you shine brightly for me.
AMEN
