Here is yet another projected masterpiece.
I’m sitting on the couch in that lull between an active afternoon and dinner prep. It’s a pleasant pause. The sun, too, is contemplating how to wrap up the day with low and long and lighthearted rays. They slide in through closed windows, combining shadows with reflections and displaying them like abstract compositions on the wall. But pay attention – they won’t last!
This is the game the sun plays with me. It throws light into the house in surprising ways and waits, as with an arched brow and impish grin, for me to notice. To see if I can find the materials it’s using in its latest work of art.
Today’s “painting” is impressive. I don’t even try to puzzle out how was constructed – why the dividers on the window show up twice, nor how light at the top could appear as brushstrokes or windblown flames. How could a straight block of sunlight on the wall continue down uninterrupted upon an object in front of it?
Beats me. I’m content to remain wide-eyed in my delight.
The crowd in John 8 must have been similarly astonished. There, during the Festival of the Tabernacles, enormous candelabras were raised and set ablaze in the large central temple courtyard. They were so bright, it was said a woman across the city could sort grain by the light. Against this backdrop, Jesus cries out, “I am the light of the world!” (John 8:12)
But it’s in John 9 when we see how his light breaks into the darkness of a single person. Jesus heals a man born blind. What’s fascinating is that, though his sight is regained the moment the man rinses off the mud Jesus put over his eyes, his coming to full faith in Jesus is gradual.
This newly sighted man starts with referring to him as “the man they call Jesus” (9:11), then calls him a prophet (17), then a godly man to whom God listens (31). When he finally sees Jesus, he declares his belief and worships him.
It’s a slow dawning. Light breaks into the man, progressively illuminating his understanding.
Contrast that to the Pharisees, who throughout this episode try desperately to explain away the miracle, shoring up their belief that a Sabbath-breaker could not possibly represent God. It’s as if, finding a remarkable display of sunlight inside their house, they frantically search for the right curtains to close.
This tension John foreshadows (perfect word!) in his first chapter: “And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.” (John 1:5, NASB)
This shouldn’t surprise us. Paradigms are stubborn. Darkened hearts resist the light. What should amaze us is how the light of Jesus ever breaks into people’s worlds despite their efforts to barricade their darkness.
But it does. Just like the light that transforms household objects into startling wonders, so Jesus’s light can bring beauty and presence into even the murkiest corners of an inner life. Even mine.
I’ve got to remember to keep the shades up and my eye on the wall.
Jesus, you are the true Light of the world. Break into our perception of you, continually surprise and delight us with who you are.
Reader: What intrusion of sunlight has caught your eye recently? Please share it with me through my email here: [email protected].
