Scripture Readings:
Your word O Lord is a lamp to our feet,
A light to our path.
Jeremiah 31:7-14
John 1: 9-18
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Reflection:
Jesus the true light was coming into the world and all who received him, believed in him, were given the authority to become children of God. New life, born not of human flesh but of God.
This is what John tells us today. By believing in Jesus the Christ, the light of the world, we receive fullness of life in God, beloved as a child of God.
What is the meaning of ‘light’? Well I looked it up and found the following:
Light is a source of illumination, whether a natural one (like the sun) or an artificial one (like a candle or a lamp). Something that makes vision possible. Light was also referred to in terms of spiritual illumination where light shines into the darkness of one’s heart and mind as an enlightenment or truth.
So Jesus is the source of illumination into darkness bringing truth and God’s grace, with power to dispel the shadows of evil, doubt, fear and despair. We are told he was not accepted by people, not even his own people.
Extraordinary isn’t it, how we human beings resist the light. We resist the possibilities of new life that are offered in the truth and grace of God, and prefer to stay in our own familiar dark cave. We search and search trying to fill our lives with that which we think we need or will give us gratification, happiness and a sense of purpose. We fail to realise that as children of God, we are created for a purpose that cannot be found in the shops, the stock market, large homes, exciting adventures, parties, substance use or having wealth, status and power.
Many people preferred to stay in the dark in Jesus day; they didn’t want to believe in something that challenged their expectations. They accepted Moses Law – it made rational sense, it provided order and it separated power – those who enforced the rules and those who were to follow them. In fact rules could be a tool of tyranny. Darkness was justified.
Jesus came as the light of the world to bring truth and justice, to illuminate the dark places, to bring new life where there was death and decay – the suffering of humanity. This would require change, possibly the need to review, share, adjust, a shifting of power, changing what is unjust to just. Illuminating can show up things we might not want to see and areas for change where there can be a lot of resistance. Transformation offers new life but it requires truth and effort. We are never alone when we live into our truth.
John tells us that the Word became flesh and lived among us – the Word of God, the voice and breath of God that brought all things into being before anything was created. Jesus, the living light that existed in the beginning was one of us.
Pretty awesome don’t you think? I imagine for many of you, beyond belief … perhaps? This is the foundation of our faith, a faith that is our source of hope and belief in something greater than ourselves. Through Jesus Christ, we are shown how to live, how to attempt to reach the true potential we were created for. We are taught to accept and use the gifts and talents, we each have.
As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are blessed because we are part of something beyond our understand and something that is sacred…in the sense that we are born as children of God. Jesus’ deep relationship with God, is also ours and through the encounter with Jesus, we are promised new life.
Jeremiah tells us a little about how much God wants us to be joyful, to experience abundance, to lean on God for our living rather than following the ways of the world which inevitably lead us astray, lead us into darkness.
Jeremiah the prophet is very clear that God does not leave the struggling, the mourning, the poor and the lost to suffer. God will not just rescue them, he will lavish them with love and goodness, he will bring them home safely, returning them to the community from which they have been separated.
The prophetic voice speaks into darkness and it does this by bringing hope. So hope is the light that shines and Christ is the light and hope of the world, a light that no darkness can extinguish.
When you think of a candle in a dark room, as you stare at it, more and more can be seen. The darkness is overcome and if you take another candle and light it from this candle, there is even more light shining – more of the room is illuminated.
This is a little bit like Christ and us. The light of Christ is the candle in the darkness. If we each take a little of Christ’s light, we too become candles of love, truth and grace in our world. Grace is only mentioned in John’s gospel 4 times, the last being in John 1:17. Grace comes to us through Christ, not as something God possesses but as the very presence of God with us and in us. Even in such times of uncertainty and struggle, no, especially in times such as these, know that you are blessed with grace, loved beyond measure and are led by the light of Christ. Amen.