2 Corinthians 4:1-7
History tells us of ancient
cultures that considered the sun to be a god.
It’s not hard to understand this perspective if we imagine not having our
scientific knowledge about what that blindingly brilliant, sometimes scorching
circle in the sky is. I imagine I would have felt negatively judged
by this “god” whenever it went into hiding or whenever it singed my skin. I imagine I would have felt blessed by it
when ray to ray reached me and made me feel alive and I realized it helped grow
things I needed to survive. Praying
to this “god” and asking its mercy would have totally made sense.
From the very
beginning of our Bible, however, we are clearly taught that the sun is not a supernatural
being. It is a splendidly designed
creation of the one God of our biblical faith.
Therefore, we do not worship the largest object in our solar system; we
worship the eternal power that brought this super star into being. We don’t thank the sunshine for brightening
our days and growing our lives … we praise God for giving our world this vital,
illumining gift. One Bible commentary
sums this up nicely by saying “the writers of the Bible consistently separate
light from its Creator, making it an
index to the divine.”[i]
As an indicator of the
Almighty, the sun rightly has a symbolic purpose on our spiritual journeys. It reminds us that there is at all times a higher
power – God -- reaching out to us, always providing for the basic necessities of
life and conquering darkness. Having
created the sun, we are reminded that our God is a steadfast steward constantly
caring for Creation. So reminded, we are
inspired to respond to this original, purest light in our lives with gratitude
that energizes us to be in worship, to be in fellowship, and to be in faithful
service.
We absorb this ever
present, life-sustaining holy light each time we profess our belief. Believe – as surely as the physical sun rose
this morning -- with your whole mind, heart and soul that the light of God’s
divine goodness and love envelops you and is cast through you wherever you are and
whatever you are doing.
I felt reminded of
this while away on a brief retreat at the shore last week. I took lots of photos that reflect God’s
radiant presence. My favorite by far
was the one snapped right after supper one day.
I had gone out to a pavilion overlooking the ocean. It was dusk – that emotive time of descending
into darkness, of beginning the wait for the next day’s sunshine. As I scanned the horizon, I, with tremendous
delight, noticed a rainbow. I had never
seen a rainbow on the ocean. Not only
did I capture the image, I meditated on how that prism of light seemed to reach
right from the heavens and from other parts of the world to touch the waters that
were rolling to the shoreline where I was standing. I may not have been able to see the sun
illuminating it, but I knew the sun was powering its presence. And it was not lost on me that about one week
earlier I had seen and taken a photo of another rainbow – one that appeared
across the street from the manse and seemed to be bridging eternal resting
places with eternity itself. The light
of God’s goodness and love envelops us each day!
Believing in the
unfailing, far reaching yet intimate and loving light of God, our voices join
the chorus of Scripture. Along with
Psalm 18:28, we sing “My God turns my darkness into light.” Along with Psalm 43:3 we gratefully ask for
further guidance, singing, “Send forth Your light and Your truth, let them
guide me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You
dwell.” And with Isaiah 60:19, we
identify where our very deepest trust in this world resides by affirming “The sun will no
more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”
I believe we should faithfully
interpret Isaiah’s prophecies about everlasting light as symbolically pointing
to our Lord Jesus Christ. To profess Jesus
as God incarnate, that is, as God in the flesh, is to also understand Jesus as completely
one with the Light that has been shining upon darkness since the beginning of
all.
According to Matthew, Jesus’s
ministry began only after He faithfully defended against the Adversary’s
God-dimming temptations in the wilderness.
Jesus marked this world-changing event by fulfilling what Isaiah had
prophesied in Isaiah 9:2, indicating that through Him, divine light shines on
all people dwelling in deep darkness. Created,
enveloped and redeemed in the light of eternal love, we live as Jesus’ friends
and faithful disciples. We confess Him
and Him alone to be the Light of the World.
We marvel at how the place of his birth was presided over by a bright
star, and how his death was overcome by a triumphal burst of Easter morning
radiance at his tomb.
Our duty as the enlightened in the
Lord is clearly pronounced in this morning’s Scripture by the Apostle
Paul. To whomever lives blinded by the
darkness of sin, we are to proclaim “the light of the Gospel of the Glory of
Christ.” We are to be as diligent in
carrying out this duty as, to use the metaphor found in today’s lesson, a
slave. Stated another way, we are to
devotedly give up ourselves to the will of another, to our God. We are called to stand with arms
outstretched, ready to continuously catch and to spread the Light of Christ
above our own interests and agendas. Reflecting
Christ to the world may sound heavy duty, but the power above and within us is
always on, forever shining on us individually and collectively, and so ours is
truly light duty!
Last week, I talked a bit about
Paul’s firmly grounded spirituality.
A further example of this is found in another metaphor he offers us in 2
Corinthians. We honor and go about our light
duty as “clay jars.” We are earth-ware,
Son-baked vessels. This
way of imaging discipleship is especially inspiring because it reminds us that God
loves us and needs us and uses the Son to strengthen us even though we are
indeed fallible and fragile. This is
another way we are light duty -- our individual design is not heavy duty the
way certain containers are meant to carry all the weight. We are designed to each carry only a
portion of the weight of God’s awesome glory in Christ.
Our being light bearing vessels in
Christ is what our current stewardship theme is all about. I’m very grateful that father and son,
Rick and Nick Frost, two very faithful members of FPC, have prepared to lead
and inspire our stewardship this season.
You’ve have hopefully received their
letter and we will be hearing from them here momentarily. Before I step away from the pulpit, though, I
have this question -- when you read or hear the stewardship theme of “Keeping
the Light On” what first comes to mind?
I know I get the old Tom Bodett
Motel 6 T.V. commercial running through my head – “We’ll leave the light on for
you.” I also think about keeping the
lights on … as in making sure we have money to pay the bills. Also
in this mix I hear a sweet song from the musical Godspell reminding me that in
Jesus I am the light of the world.
Yet another thing that
comes to my mind is Thomas Edison’s invention, the electrolier. This was a
first of its kind overhead light fixture hung in the First Presbyterian Church
of Roselle, NJ, making this church, in 1883, the very first in the world to be
lit by electricity. I’ve seen the electrolier because it still hung when I
was the student pastor there in 1995. I
preached my first sermon right next to that historical light. While we have powerful single bulbs that
cast greater light today, in order for the electrolier
to really shine it was made up of 30 bulbs.
It was a cluster of light, or to
put it even better way, a congregation of light. Symbolically, then, it worked very well to remind
Christians back then that they needed to stick together to keep the light of
Christ shining!
We are light-carrying
fixtures, Son-baked earthen vessels, prisms refracting Christ’s Light. Our light duty is to point to the
life-giving, life-sustaining, life-resurrecting power of God that envelops the
world by grace and through faith. We worship, fellowship and lovingly serve our
neighbors in this sacred shine. In the infinite wisdom of God, stewardship of
Creation was tasked to humankind under the energy of the physical sun and in
the illuminating truth of the Son, Christ Jesus. I pray for us all to act as energized
stewards who fully embrace and faithfully execute our light duty – not just
during a stewardship campaign, but every single time the sun rise and sets. I pray we deeply accept and are inspired by
the truth proclaimed in Colossians 1:13, for glory be to God, we have been
“rescued from the power of darkness and transferred … into the kingdom of the
Son.” Amen.
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