The Light of the World

First of all, you must understand that I live in a dark time. If you read on, you’ll no doubt agree. Assuredly, my family agrees, as do all of my friends, the brothers and sisters in our tiny faith community. Sometimes, I must confess, the darkness seems so strong that I fear it will overwhelm us. It can be so very discouraging. When will the good ever triumph over evil? Will it ever? How long must we wait? How long?

You may be wondering: who am I? You won’t find my name in any history book. In truth, I’m a non-person, nothing more than a piece of property, a slave to a Roman master in what you call the third century after Christ. In my century, of course, there is no recognition of Christ, and so our calendars reflect Roman gods, e.g., Janus, Mars, and so on. And years are measured, not from the birth of Jesus, as you do, but instead, from the founding of Rome.

But I digress. Despite my discouragement, I and all of my family are devout followers of Jesus Christ. He is our savior and our hope. Unfortunately, though, we can follow him only in secret. You see, our sect, now labeled “Christian” (a derogatory term to the local Jews) is illegal in the eyes of the Roman authorities here in my city of Corinth, and we are expected to worship the emperor as a god. And as a slave, any public expression of my allegiance to Jesus would result in my death. 

So, we meet in secret, in homes, away from the eyes of our masters. And although a few in our company have won their freedom, they must also be careful nonetheless.

In the two centuries since the death and resurrection of our Lord, it has been no different. The earliest believers were persecuted by their fellow Jews, and many were martyred as they worked to share the Gospel of Christ throughout the Empire. 

And yet, the faith has survived. In fact, it has thrived, underground, despite the darkness, as more people have found their hope in Christ. Even without many of the writings found in your Bible, the stories of Jesus have been passed from generation to generation, mostly by word of mouth. And copies of the first century letters, written by the Apostle Paul and others, have been covertly circulated among the churches, from Syria all the way to Alexandria and Rome.

Looking back at us from your century, more than 1,800 years on from ours, you may wonder how our faith could be so strong, withstanding the opposition and the darkness against which we struggle. I will come back to that question in a bit.

But before I do, let’s talk about the darkness in your time.

You can’t miss it. The time in which you live is no less than one of the cruelest eras in all of history, with devastating global wars, genocides, pandemics, terrorism, pollution of the earth and by many, the proclamation of lies as truth. Honestly, the times and circumstances of your lives can’t help but immerse believers like you in a thick darkness every bit as evil as what we find in our century. And potentially every bit as discouraging to your faith.

But you, in your century, are blessed by one thing that we, in our time, cannot see. That one thing, the perspective of history, allows you to reflect on all of the centuries, from the life of Jesus up until your current time. And looking back, darkness can be seen in every single one: the darkness of evil that seeks to overcome the Good. That darkness, which has been nothing less than a boiling cauldron of hate, can be traced to many sources, from power-hungry dictators, to seducers of the people, and unfortunately, even at times, to the authority of the church.

However, that same historical perspective, as discouraging as it might be, opens up your generation to a truth that, viewing from our century, we cannot know. Because, you see, the hope of our generation is in the imminent return of Christ. All the prophecies seem to point to it. And, desperate for hope in the midst of the darkness, we cling to our faith that Christ will return and put an end to the evil that surrounds us.

Of course, looking back from your century, you know that Christ does not, in fact, return in our lifetimes. We will go to our graves with that hope still alive in our hearts.

So, what is the truth that can now be seen from your century? The truth that we, in our time, cannot see?

It all relates to Light. Yes, Light.

Light is the first of God’s creations. Remember the very first lines of scripture?

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1)

And do you remember that Jesus called himself “the light of the world?”

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” (John 8)

On the mount of transfiguration, Jesus literally became light.

The Transfiguration

Raphael, 1520

“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.” (Matthew 17)

Yet from the beginning, the powers of darkness fought against Jesus, expressing a cruel hatred so terrible, so evil, and so violent that it succeeded in brutally killing him. But thanks to the raising of Jesus from the dead, the darkness was not able to overcome his light. He lives!

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  (John 1)

And so, what you can see, that we, in our time cannot, is this truth: the darkness, in all its evil and hate, in all its cruel power, has not and cannot overcome the light of Christ, the light that illumines all the world. Over the span of history, all of the centuries from the time of Jesus until your day, the light of Christ has been attacked in the most terrible ways possible, from the death of Jesus up until your time of global wars and genocides. And the darkness of evil will continue to attack the light. It will attack with all of the tools at its disposal.

Yet, the Light of Christ still shines. It has not been extinguished. The darkness, across twenty centuries of trying, has not prevailed against the Light. Yes, even as it is attacked, the Light of Christ still shines. It shines in our hearts in this present time of great oppression, and it has continued to shine down through the centuries. It shines in your hearts today. And that light, His light, is a light of love, a love which can never be killed by hate. And just as Christ still lives, so love still lives as well.

And so, in the time of darkness in which you live, you may be wondering, just as we do in ours: when will the good triumph over evil? Will it ever? How long? How long?

My prayer for you in your time is that you can take comfort in the truth that the Light of Christ will never be put out, will never be overcome by the evil darkness that seeks to extinguish it. The good will triumph. Completely. In God’s time.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)

And there is one more thing. You may read this letter to you from the past and ask yourself, “But what about the darkness that’s inside of me?” If we are honest, each one of us can ask that very same question. Can we do anything about our personal darkness?

The darkness of evil, you see, can be openly oppressive, and we can feel it in the world around us. But it can also be seductive, finding a secret home inside each one of us. We can fall victim to it, almost before we know it. And it spares no one. No one.

But speaking to you from across the centuries, let me share these words of encouragement. Just as the Father spoke the light into being on the first day of creation, so he has planted his light, the Light of Christ, in each one of us. We may struggle to recognize it. And we may have ignored or even tried to suppress it. 

Yet, even if we have embraced the darkness, the light within us still shines. It is always there, and it will never die. Just as Christ is the Light of the World, so his spirit shines within each and every one of us. And just as the darkness of evil has not succeeded in snuffing out his light in the world, so it cannot succeed in snuffing it out in each and every one of us. Including you.

But you, beloved are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5: 4 – 5)