Life Lines
let there be light
We are just a month or so separated from Christmas. Doubtless some bright
lights prolong the cheer on trees and houses. Hopefully there is still a lingering
glow in our hearts.
Throughout the Word light is a symbol of truth, of hope, of love. Twinkling
lights and candles are so much a part of Christmas because this is why the
Lord was born on earth – to shine a new light in a darkening world. His light
was heralded by an angelic star. Wise men came to worship Him because they
had seen and followed His star.
The prayer flowing out of Christmas and into the new year is that those of
us who walk in darkness – and we all experience that at times – may see the
light and reflect it in our lives. The darkness of the human spirit will always be
with us, and light is the best defense we have. It was best expressed in the hope
and prophecy of Isaiah about the birth of the Lord: “The people who walked
in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of
death, upon them has the light shined.” (Isaiah 9:2)
An Indian tribe in Oklahoma once encouraged its youth to “live like men
who are at home in the daylight.” Isn’t that what we all long for amid the dark
impulses infecting the world: people who are “at home in the daylight,” with
nothing to hide.
It is no coincidence that the Word begins and ends with visions of light.
Genesis opens with God creating the heaven and earth, but “darkness was on
the face of the deep.” And God said: “Let there be light, and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good.”
In the final chapters of Revelation we get the beautiful vision of the Holy
City New Jerusalem: “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the
moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the
light thereof.”
The whole of the Word is to be “a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my
path.” (Psalm 119:105)
In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A
city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:14)
And He says in the Gospel of John – several times: “I am the light of the
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