Light walked out of a dark tomb on Resurrection Sunday. Light! It was a sunrise for the ages! Revolutionary light! Life-giving Light. We believe that Light is the Light of the world. We believe that Light brings more than electricity or solar power ever will. However, the question we must wrestle with after Easter is this:
It is one thing to complain about the dark places of this world, where all the wrong attitudes and angers collide. We can all point out the darkness, complain about it, protest it; but the Light that walked out of that tomb 2000 years ago has always called for a different strategy. We are to be reflectors of this night-breaking Light. We make no light on our own. We are borrowers only.
We can bring no Light that we have not received. We need new immersion in this Light. We need to review how we position ourselves in our cultural chaos to make sure that we are always receiving Light from the Way, the Truth and THE LIGHT .
We need to be Light bearers where people we know do not understand this Light. We cannot turn them with arguments. The Light we reflect shares mercy, forgiveness, hope, and healing.
I am reminded of the words of a new song I heard during Advent. It haunts me every time I hear it. It summarized what I’m feeling in these days of so much coming apart and not coming back together. It asks two questions:
Do you feel the world is broken?
I do!
Do you feel the shadows deepen?
I do!
But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through?
It's that last question that I stumble on. Do I? Do you? What in our actions proves that we believe it?
That’s the question of Easter isn’t it? Do we know that Light has come and that it is a Light that breaks through ALL darkness? Do we know that because we quote the scripture? Or do we know that because that Light revealed the darkness in our hearts and resurrected us with a new heartbeat? Do we want to share the Light because we know what that Light brought to us?
Live as children of Light, John pleads with us. Live so that people ask us how we can be so hopeful in a hopeless time. Live so that we aren’t trying to make our own little lights shine big somewhere. Live so that the very resurrected Light, the Light that came through death to find us in our darkness, that enlivened us and woke us up with a sunrise that never goes away—that’s the Light we live.
It is Light that no one or no circumstance can take away. Not in a pandemic. Not at a grave. Not in cancer treatment. Not in betrayal. We always go back to Light who walked out of a tomb so that we did not have to live in this broken, dark world without Light.
Where does someone you know need resurrected Light today? Their need becomes your call.
Let there be Light!