Light

When I was thinking about what to write about today, our reading of several days ago came back to me.  I had a lot of comments that night and sometimes I think it would be better if I just wrote down what I think instead of running my stream of consciousness through the middle of my 10 and 13 year olds' scripture reading.

We are in the middle of John and we were reading about Christ saying He is the Light of the World.  He's poetic almost in his declaration and I got to thinking about how His analogy might be wasted on those of this generation.  After all, we can have light anytime we feel like it.  At midnight or after, when I can't sleep, I can flip a switch without even getting out of bed and have light to read or do my crossword puzzles.  When Keith leaves the house in the morning, even at 5 o'clock, there are street lights getting him to the car in the driveway.  When he starts the car and backs out, the first thing to hit the road is his headlights, illuminating what is before him.  We have nightlights in our hallways, so the kids don't have to walk to the bathroom in the dark when they wake up in the night.  There's mood lighting and dimmer switches;  There's lights in the refrigerator and the microwave;  There's even  flashlights and lanterns for when we go camping.  We are never without light.

In Christ's time, when the sun went down, that was it.  People were finished working.  Period.  No more repairing the fishnets or carving wood.  No more anything, except by candle light.  Even the oil lamps spoken of in the parable of the ten virgins were tiny and gave off barely enough light to find your way.  What a metaphor that must have been to the faithful at that time, to think of Jesus as lighting up the world.  Our world today pushes away the meaning of many things with it's  pace and ease, but none more than the meaning of darkness vs. light.

My first missionary companion gave me a picture of the a candle, with it's little flame.  It had a scripture laminated on the back--probably the "Let your light so shine among men..."  If I could  think of myself in the context of a place with no light, no electricity, no batteries and as the Savior as the light source, maybe I could understand better how my little piece of the light can make such a difference.