“Throughout the scripture God is unquestionably sovereign over elements of darkness no matter where they are found.”
Light is something we all understand, especially as it relates to darkness. We’ve all seen what happens to darkness when it meets with light — darkness ceases to exist. Isn’t that cool? Darkness doesn’t move over outside the boundaries of the light, it ceases to exist. I love the way that works. To state the obvious, there are significant spiritual insights to the themes of light and dark.
We find the themes of light and dark all over scripture. In fact, we see them almost immediately in the creation story found in Genesis and they develop all the way through to the end of the New Testament. The biblical authors use these themes over and over as a way of talking about God, Jesus, and our spiritual life.
Years ago I took a youth group through an evening held completely in the dark. All the lights in the room were off for the entire evening. Have you ever participated in a group experience completely in the dark? I hadn’t, except for this night, it was so much fun.
We played a “game” where the students had to find pieces of a dismantled flashlight hidden around the room with the goal of reassembling all the missing pieces once they were found. It took a while for them to find the parts of the flashlight, but once they found all the pieces and had assembled it they instinctively turned it on. What happened next was unexpected and worked as a great teaching opportunity.
When the light from the flashlight filled the small corner of the room everyone else, from wherever they happened to be, stopped what they were doing and walked over to the light. They were like moths attracted to the flame. Interestingly, I hadn’t given them any instruction. I didn’t tell them to go to the light, that’s simply what they did, and it provided a great opportunity to talk about light, dark, and spiritual lessons around following Jesus.
From the beginning of the Old Testament the use of light is strongly connected to the personal presence of God. God himself leads and guides his people in the wilderness though light. Later, as we looked at in our message, Jesus claims to be the ‘light of the world.’ The link of light with the Creator is also used as a tie between light and full life. If light symbolizes God’s presence, and God is the author of life, then surely where God is, life abounds.
I think it’s also important to note that in the bible light and darkness, most often understood as good and evil, are not equal. Throughout the scripture God is unquestionably sovereign over elements of darkness no matter where they are found. This become incredibly apparent in the death and resurrection of Jesus in which Jesus was victorious over all things that stood in opposition to God. In fact, the New Testament clearly re-focuses the theme of light and life on Jesus as Messiah and the bodily presence of God. The light of God literally walking on earth giving us guidance and direction, incredible!
There is so much hope in Jesus, the presence of God in our midst, the source of light in the darkness, our salvation, our healing, the one who restores, reveals, gives wisdom, and freedom. Where are you experiencing darkness in your life these days? We’ve all come through a very difficult year, we are not completely through it yet. Let’s be like the students who instinctively sought the light in the dark. Jesus was clear on this teaching, “Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life (John 8:12).”