Come into the Light

I love watching Indiana Jones type action movies, when the hero has to overcome ridiculous odds to defeat the baddies, get the girl and find the treasure. There is always one scene where they are in a dark cave under a mountain. Someone manages to light a flaming torch. Suddenly, everything is visible. They can see the way forward and avoid all the traps, as the diamonds glitter in the light.

Light is like that; it shows us the way, helps us avoid danger and makes us feel safe. Thus, one of Jesus’ titles is Light of the World, as He does all these for Christians.

But light has other uses and properties. Older folks will remember the television advertisements when the housewife was invited to bring her husband’s white shirts, which she had just washed, into the light, to see how white they really were. More recently, there have been people finding that things they hoped would stay hidden have come out into the open; MPs who used expenses to enhance their lifestyles and newspaper proprietors who didn’t care how information was gathered as long as the stories sold newspapers, to name but two. Light shows things as they are, not as we would like them to be.

In his gospel, John tells us that Nicodemus, one of the Jewish leaders, came to Jesus with some questions. Among other things, Jesus told him, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:19-21)

The challenge to Nicodemus, and to people ever since, is this; do you want to hide in the darkness or get a new start and come out into the light?

Paul Newton