Light is warm, comforting, life...
Illustration
Light is warm, comforting, life-giving. Yet, to the eye of the physicist, light has some remarkable scientific properties. John, writing in the first century, hasn't the slightest conception of modern physics. Yet, it's amazing how relevant his image of light remains, when extended to include the insights of modern science.
The physicists tell us that light is the ultimate constant in the universe. Its speed is utterly invariable. So, too, is Jesus Christ. He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever."
The scientists also tell us that light is never defined over against something else. Space and time can be compared to one another -- and, in Einstein's theory, they may even influence one another -- but light simply is. So, too, God simply is.
One of the paradoxes of light is that we never see it as it truly is. We see it only reflected in other things. If you or I were to gaze directly at raw, unmediated light -- to stare, for example, at a total eclipse of the sun -- the receptor cells on the back surface of our eyes would be permanently damaged. We would never see again.
John the Baptist came "to bear witness to the light." Yet the light to which he bears witness is not the raw, unmediated light of God, but rather the light of Christ. Beholding him, we no longer need to shield our eyes, fearing that God's glory may strike us blind. For in the manger at Bethlehem lies not a fearsome deity but a babe, as helpless and as human as any other. He is one of us.
The physicists tell us that light is the ultimate constant in the universe. Its speed is utterly invariable. So, too, is Jesus Christ. He is "the same yesterday, today, and forever."
The scientists also tell us that light is never defined over against something else. Space and time can be compared to one another -- and, in Einstein's theory, they may even influence one another -- but light simply is. So, too, God simply is.
One of the paradoxes of light is that we never see it as it truly is. We see it only reflected in other things. If you or I were to gaze directly at raw, unmediated light -- to stare, for example, at a total eclipse of the sun -- the receptor cells on the back surface of our eyes would be permanently damaged. We would never see again.
John the Baptist came "to bear witness to the light." Yet the light to which he bears witness is not the raw, unmediated light of God, but rather the light of Christ. Beholding him, we no longer need to shield our eyes, fearing that God's glory may strike us blind. For in the manger at Bethlehem lies not a fearsome deity but a babe, as helpless and as human as any other. He is one of us.
