Life and light are mysteries to us. Who can fathom what travels at a speed eight hundred seventy thousand times faster than sound? The speed of light alone is almost embarrassing to try and comprehend. I sure can't begin to explain its physics.
But here’s a cute one: According to the Star Trek Technical Manual, the U.S. Starship Enterprise, captained by James T. Kirk and driven by Helmsman Lieutenant Sulu, could travel up to a speed of warp 9.2, a near tenfold advantage over the actual speed of light. Nice try.
I’m a complete ignoramus of even just what light is though I’ve lived with it and benefited from it every day of my life. I’d like a nickel for every time I’ve flipped a light switch as though I were in control of this incomprehensible element. But who am I kidding!
Life is even more a mystery. Job said, “Life is a breath.” (Job 7:7) On one hand it seems so fragile, liable to be snuffed away in a moment -- as quickly as a light blinking out. Yet for Christians, St. Paul affirms our life is “… hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3) That’s no fragile anchorage. For us in Christ, life is absolutely safe and unalterable.
Again, who can figure it? We’ve experienced and benefited from created life for a good number of years, so it shouldn’t be such a brain twister, but it still is – except in this: St. John says when light shines in the darkness, the darkness can't handle it. Now that I get.
On one level that’s not something you have to believe. You can see it. When the light of one tiny flame from a little teeny match illumines an entire room which moments before was pitch black, that proves darkness hasn’t the slightest power over light.
When a firefly can fly into an ocean of night without fear of being dimmed so much as a single yactowatt by the dark(that’s an actual measurement something like 1/gazillionth of a watt), then light has vanquished.
But the Bible says Christ, in whom was life, is the light of men. Life wasn't given to him nor did He invent It. Life is who He is. And He has given us His life and light.
Christ’s light is not the glow of a firefly or even of the blazing sun of our solar system. That is created light. Christ is Uncreated Light. Even science fiction can't make up a tale on that scale.
But uncreated light is The Light which must be believed. It can't be measured. It can't be weighed. It can't be verified by a clearer eye. The Uncreated Light reveals the truth to us. It judges us. We don’t judge Him.
But probe God's Word and you will discover brilliance. Trust God's Word and your faith will prove to the world that light and life have been given by God to people through His Word.
The darkness has not overcome it and never will. The darkness of lies has not diffused the truth of Christ by a single flicker. The blackness of death hasn’t inhibited the mercy of Christ by a single scintilla. Jesus Christ is the Beacon of God and no one in him can be made to stumble.
“One little word” about Christ the Light fells the Prince of Darkness like a bolt of lightning on a toad. One single Word from Him reverses blindness, scatters thick darkness and even raises the dead.
No one can safely deny it.
How do we know? Darkness just doesn’t have what it takes.
The light of Christ has shined into the darkness of ignorance, sin, and shame – and the darkness has not overcome it.
