Light

Holidays are over for another year. Ann and I are thankful for a restful time away with family. Now back to the transformation story of Jesus and His prophetic promise for those who participate in His Kingdom. 

Matthew 5:14-16

14 ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others…..

Light

Can we imagine what it must have been like to have been chosen to be the first disciples of Jesus? The world we live in is antagonistic, all the old certainties are gone, we find ourselves sharing life with people we would not have crossed the street to help but would have crossed the street to avoid and they have become our friends. There are so few of us committed to following Jesus. Can we survive never mind tell the whole world that the Kingdom of God has come?  The temptation must be to close ranks, keep ourselves to ourselves, cherish the truth and keep it safe among those who willingly accept it. Then we remember the words of Jesus, could He really have meant what He said, did He really believe that we, such a small group of followers could be ‘… the light of the world.’? There was a religious group at the time of Jesus who lived at Qumran near the Dead Sea in a monastery. They were experts in the Hebrew Scriptures and expected their world to come to a sudden end; which it did! This was the community that hid the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible in jars and buried them in caves to protect them from the destruction and ethnic cleansing that Rome committed in an attempt to crush Hebrew resistance to Roman rule. We know their documents as the Dead Sea scrolls. They liked to be known as the ‘sons of light’. Quite a name when you think about it. If they are the ‘sons of light’ then the rest must be the? Yip, you’ve got it the ‘sons of darkness’. When Jesus looked at the rag tag bunch that He was teaching, He was telling them that they were the ‘light of the world’; He was giving them the light of the world in the form of Himself, His teachings and practices. They were not to hide it away like the Qumran people. They were not to keep it safe in jars for some future generation to pick over. Jesus was teaching them that they were the initiation, the inauguration community that in Isaiah 2 are ultimately set on a hill and draw all the nations to the ‘House of the God of Jacob’. Don’t be put off by the fact you’re only a small group of diverse followers; be the people you have been called to be; be the light of the world. Numbers don’t matter, the truth matters, light matters so let it shine!