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The Light of the World
By: Sharon Harman
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16
When David asked me to choose a word about our covenant for a sharing, the word "Light" came immediately to my mind as the word that I would choose. I'd like to start out by telling you a true story that highlighted for me how we are light for one another.
Being the light of Christ to others
Some of you may remember Paul and Kay O'Keefe from our Community. They were members for many years. Late in life the Lord blessed them with a son, Paul Jr., and he was their pride and joy. He participated in our Scout Troop and he was active in our Children's Ministries. Paul also suffered from asthma. One evening an asthma attack was particularly severe and took his life; he was 12 years old. Back then our Community was divided into districts with an overall coordinator over the district and a handmaid who helped the women with their needs. I was the new and very young handmaid for our area and I knew I needed to go to Kay. I dreaded it because I had no experience at all in dealing with grief nor did I know what I could possibly say that would bring comfort in the loss of their only son. Another older handmaid that I looked up to, Joy McDonald, offered to go with me.
Early the next morning we went to Kay's house. When Joy and I got out of the car and started up the sidewalk, Kay came out of the door and the first words out of her mouth were "Here come my sisters bringing the light of Christ." Wow! She had just reminded me what we were actually doing. Kay had just suffered the loss of the only son that they would ever have and yet reached out to receive that light of Christ from us even though we hadn't even said a word yet; we were just present, our presence was enough. It left an indelible impression on me that through our faithfulness to our covenant relationship to be present to one another that we both give and receive light in a deeper way.
Being God’s deLIGHT
I looked through our covenant recently to find all the references to "light" that were in it for this talk. Does anyone know how many references to light there are in the covenant? Zero! I was thinking, "Oh no, I picked the wrong word!" Then I thought, okay unless you count all the references to our name "God's DeLIGHT!” The dictionary defines delight as "great pleasure" and I think that God gave us that name because we bring him great pleasure and joy when we live out the various commitments that we made. I encourage you to take a look at our covenant this week; it's on the website under our covenant log in, but look at it as a reminder of the type of actions by which we bring light into our own lives and into each other's lives.
I'm just going to share with you you a few things we committed to as a reminder:
To love and serve him by daily prayer and sacrifice
To praise and worship him always
To offer hospitality to those whom he sends us
To serve and care for our brothers and sisters in the Community
To meet together with the Community when they Community needs us
These are just a few of the ways that we become light to each other and to the world, but my challenge to you is: do you even remember all the things that are there? When I went back and looked at it , there were things that I had forgotten that were part of my commitment.
In scripture the theme of light and darkness is woven all throughout the Old and New Testament as a metaphor for good and evil. So if we are the light of the world as the first scripture says, then we are only so because we bring the life and light of Jesus in us. We are not the light, he is the light that we bring. I want to refer you to a couple of scriptures:
Again Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the Light of the World. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. – John 8:12
I have come as light into the world that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. – John 12:46
He doesn't want us to be in the darkness. He wants us to live our lives in the light.
Darkness has no power over the light
Tomorrow, as you know, some areas of the United States will experience a total solar eclipse, where the moon covers the sun completely and there will be darkness for about 2 minutes. Well, I love science and I was reading about the moment of totality and what the scientific community is looking forward to seeing and learning when that happens. There are some spiritual parallels that we can draw when we understand this natural phenomenon.
When the moon completely comes between the earth and the sun it's the only time that the sun's corona is visible. The corona is like the sun's atmosphere and is like a jacket of gases that surrounds the sun, but it usually cannot be seen because of the sun's strong light. The corona is a spectacular sight because the only time that it can be seen is during a solar eclipse. Also visible during totality are the colorful lights from the sun's chromosphere and solar formations that shoot out through the sun's atmosphere. It was during a total eclipse that scientists discovered the element helium. This year, one of the things I read that they are excited about is that they are going to be able to map the magnetic field in a way that is not possible at other times. Some astronomers said that the total eclipse is like a spiritual experience because of the beauty and the awe of it is just so strong.
So what are the parallels for us? Each of us has moments or maybe years of some type of darkness in our lives or the lives of those we know, maybe joblessness, poor health, spiritual dryness or broken relationships. They are the events that appear to snuff out the light of Christ in our lives, like the moon covering the sun. If we will but stay in the presence of Jesus, we will see a beauty of God that can only be seen in those times of darkness. When every other source of light is stripped away we can see and experience in a deeper way the beautiful truths and the glory of God that were always there, but not visible to us.
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. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. – 1 John 1: 5,7
Brothers and sisters, we do not have to do anything to bring the light of Jesus to others, except just to let the light of Jesus dwell in us, nurture that relationship, and then be present with each other. We are not the light, but we bring the light whether it's through our physical presence, our voice over the phone, an encouraging text or an email, or maybe it's just listening. We are not people who are afraid of the darkness that comes into our lives because it has no power over the light of Jesus that dwells within.
In him was life and the life was the light of men; the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:4-5
I encourage you to be the light of the world! Don't let your light be hidden under a bushel basket, but let it shine! Bring that light to those who are in any type of darkness so that others may give glory to God. Amen.
Community Gathering, August 20, 2017