What Do You Really See Out There?

[HKHaugan]

Light. When John uses this word to describe the Jesus, the Word, what is He saying? A few years back Debbie Boone recorded a love song that became tops on pop charts, “You Light Up My Life.” It was quickly sung by many Christians to refer to the way Jesus lights up our life. But that idea of personal lighting is a common experience. Think about how we talk about people we know who ‘light up the room’ when they walk in. Or think about the times when we go to a fireworks display or watch lightning in the sky and say “Wow, what a light show!” Sure the light is beautiful but what we are addressing is the impression it makes or the impression a person makes or the awesomeness behind them. We respond when we see something or someone making a lasting impression.

When John wrote that in Jesus “was life and that life was the light of men” (1:4) the vivid memory of a ‘light’ occasion had been indelibly marked in his mind, the Transfiguration (Mt.17:2). He, James and Peter were there (1Peter 1:16-17). A wholly new dimension had been opened to them. There was physical light behind which was spiritual and personal light. What Jesus had done was to show that what couldn’t be seen was as real as what could be seen. Jesus was a person of light filled with the Spirit of light using the physical to demonstrate He was the light of the world.

But for John it was more. Jesus was the Word of life which was the light of men. He was and is Scripture alive. The words from the Word burst with light when we fix our gaze on Jesus as we read the incarnation of His mind and heart. The very fact that John opens his Gospel with “In the beginning” he is obviously drawing on the truth it spoke, “And God said, let there be light” as well as the other “God said’s” and the prophecies that are filled with “The Lord said.”

How many times I read the Parables and the way they confront my mind and heart with His accurate perception of me and my spiritual condition. The Parables are like light bulbs, actually more like flash bulbs, that go off when I am open to their spark. I think about the Parable of the Prodigal Son and after reading it find that I not only identify with the prodigal’ attitude but I have a whole lot of the elder brother’s attitude in me as well. Or take for instance, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, how many opportunities I’ve had when people I’ve run into were in need and I just passed them by. And I’m not talking just about people in a literal gutter but those in an emotional and spiritual gutter as well. My hesitancy or reluctance, or both, left them where they were because I had ‘more important’ things to do.

I read the Psalms and am overwhelmed at the depth with which David comes before the Lord in praise or his moments of anguish and despair asking ‘why me Lord?’ Then those amazing stories of faith in action when Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, to name just three, plead their weakness before the Lord but, in spite of their fear, do what the Lord called them forth for. Where was I when He called me to speak for Him and didn’t? Hmmmm.

But then I consider the Cross of Jesus, the sacrifice He made for me personally and know He has forgiven me and I have spoken for Him but never enough and can anyone say they have done enough for Him? Yes, the Word did become flesh. I saw His light. I know it is the life for all of us. He is, as He said, the way, the truth and the life.

Right now as I am writing this I’m looking through the trees across to a ridge in His mountains. The sun is rising to give definition to the trees, the birds flying by the deck and the hummingbird feeding on the sugar water we have hanging out there for them. I have just come in from jogging on the very hilly roads that line Sugar Mountain. It’s a cool 60 degrees and the detail is always stunning. Even in the rain. All of it came through the Word and nothing came into being without Him. The early stillness gives those moments of contemplation that the Holy Spirit uses to make His Word come to life in me. Everything points to Him in its massiveness, its breadth, in its minutest detail and its careful organized interdependency. And everything that makes us persons, individuals who think and feel and act, how we are put together; all can be felt as what we are --- images of God, His children, His love and hopefully, His glory as we yield to Him. That is the light I have been given, which is my life to see Him, to see you, to see the world and to see our destiny in Him.