Jesus Lighted

What Did Jesus Do?

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 1.4

Have you ever experienced utter darkness? I cannot say for certain it was utter darkness, but I cannot imagine any greater physical darkness than that which I was plunged into in the depths of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky when the National Park Ranger extinguished his light. Even in a few seconds, the fear of being lost in that place with no light able to penetrate it, began to grip me. I am here today only because the Ranger lighted the cave so we could make our way up and out. Far more frightening than that physical darkness is the utter and eternal spiritual darkness of being cut off from God. Fortunately,

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
1 John 1.5

Out of eternity past the Father spoke his Word into the utter darkness of the void, and there was light! The Word was there in the beginning. The Word was with God. The Word was God. And the Word illuminated, filled with light, lighted the world, if you will. In the fullness of time the Word came into the world, incarnating light in flesh and blood in the person of the Son.

Try as it might, darkness could not un-light the world. Oh, the light has waxed and waned through the millennia, but it can never be extinguished. And people, lost and living as it were in a land of darkness, have seen the light of the world and know that this light is God the Father himself, made manifest in and through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus put it plainly enough,

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8.12

And, as long as He was in the world, Jesus continued to be the light of the world. (John 9.5) Yet, Jesus knew the day would come when He would be taken out of the world and lifted back into heaven. Though He knew this was hard for His disciples to accept, Jesus reassured them that it would be to their advantage that He go away; for then the Father would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would do something quite marvelous.

For, you see, Jesus declared His followers to be, as He himself was, the light of the world. (Matthew 5.14) As Jesus lighted the world, so too all who follow the Son are lighters, illuminators, ones who by the power of the Holy Spirit fill the world with light, the light of the Father manifest in his Word, his Son. And in the light there still abides the life, the true and abundant life of men, which is none other than Jesus Christ.

People long-accustomed to darkness typically don’t welcome light. Light is actually painful at first to those who have known nothing but darkness. People, His own people, chose, as unbelievable as it sounds, to not receive the light, and remained in darkness. But the light would not be hid. And for all who did receive the light, well, they were blessed to become the children of God, to become lighters. It was and is the purpose of the light to be lifted up and carried throughout the world so that its illumination should reach everywhere, even the darkest of places, the darkest of hearts.

One light, one life, one Word, from the beginning, bringing fellowship with the Father and with the Son; and if we walk in the light we are lighters even as He lighted, and we both have and bring fellowship in and with the light to those living in darkness. That’s what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4