Jesus and Light

"None of you lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl.
Instead you put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light.

Your eye is the lamp of your body.
When your eyes are healthy,
your whole body also is full of light.
But when they are unhealthy,
your body also is full of darkness.

See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.
Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark,
it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you."
Luke 11v33-36 (TNIV)

Being the brilliant teacher he is, Jesus takes a very simple concept and allows it to open up a whole new way of seeing how we can influence the world for good. He pulls together simple observation about lamplight and eyesight, weaves in some insights about moral and ethical responsibilities, and casts a vision for what this new life could be like.

Lamplight is what gets you home when it's dark, it shows you where to put your next step, it keeps you on the journey. Lamplight is what marks home as home - someone is waiting for you, someone is wanting you to be with them. Lamplight is what makes reading and conversation and thinking possible when it's gotten dark, the stars have come out, life has stilled, and there is space to breathe.

When your eyes are wide open to the world, when you see what is great and beautiful as well as terrible and tragic, when you see life as it is, something stirs inside you. We rejoice at the good we see and shudder at the terror. But when our eyes are closed, we're blind to life around us. Either because we're sleeping, resting, escaping, or scared. We can't keep our eyes closed forever - unless your dead. You can't stay blind to life around you all the time - at some point you have to look around you and really see life as it is. And what will you do when you see life as it really is?

Jesus uses a play on words when he talks about healthy and unhealthy eyes. Good eyesight enables us to see clearly, poor eyesight blurs or blinds us to everything around us. But healthy and unhealthy are a metaphor for generous and stingy. How can you have good eyesight, how can you see life around you, and not be generous? Clearly a stingy heart, in light of the hardships so many around us face, imply an unhealthy vision. Don't you want to live with eyes wide open, with a generous heart, with a lamp in hand for those around you?

Jesus knows that we can only open our eyes when the Spirit prompts us - that the light floods in when God comes to us. Jesus also knows that the sign of the Spirit in us, that God has become Immanuel to us, is when we have generous hearts, when our bodies serve as lamplights to the people in our life. Though not everyone will welcome the lamplight, it's the best gift we have to offer the world. We may not rescue everyone, but we'll rescue no one if we don't open our eyes and let in the light! Generosity is what marked the words and works of Jesus - and it ought to be true of us as well.