[image: Lighthouse point, 2007, JA Van Devender]
12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
For a variety of reasons it was seemingly impossible to get a good image of this site. Sometimes you just don't have the right equipment, skills or ideas to make it happen. This particular image is deficient in many aspects but I think that actually illustrates my main meditation today.
When Jesus stated that He was the light of the world He was making a point about perception... our perception. Lighthouses are there for when the visibility is poor... when things aren't easy to see... when there is darkness all around and danger lies just ahead. By taking a series of bearings off the lighthouse blinking in the darkness as a ship moves through the water, plotting those bearings and taking into account the ship's measured speed, a pilot can know with a fair degree of accuracy just where he is and how to avoid the reefs. From the ancient lighthouse at Alexandria (c300 BC) to modern ones like this one in South Korea, lighthouses have been beacons of hope to anxious mariners.
Jesus is the light of the world. We can think of Him as the Sun shining brilliantly illuminating every aspect of our lives, illuminating the corners that were dark and foreboding, enabling us to see clearly where nothing was clear before. Or we can think of Him as a brilliant shaft of light, penetrating the darkness, casting a beam which invites us to walk in that light, trusting that light, even though there is blackness on every side outside the beam's periphery. Both are true. It's more dependent on our immediate circumstances as to which is most applicable to us at any one moment.
If our days are dark and we feel lost and unsettled in our spirit... that shaft of light blinking brightly before us gives us hope. We may not know what all that other stuff "out there" means... or what dangers lie hidden beyond our vision... we may have anxiety about what is ahead and what tomorrow will bring... there may be questions that haunt us, sleep that eludes us, relationships that try us, temptations that assail us... but there is that light. And by fixing our eyes on that light... by narrowing our vision and trusting in what that light means... then we know our course will be right and we will at last be delivered from the terrors that lie about us.
To fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, is to recognize that He must be what the Scriptures proclaim Him to be. He must be that man, and more than a man, who walked this earth and brought words of comfort and healing to people just like you and me. It is to hear the gentleness of His voice speaking to those who hurting, the meek, the lowly, the down-cast souls. It is to hear about the forgiveness of sins for those who sincerely hate the sin that seems to possess their very heart and who long to be rid of it. It is to see His mighty works as if they happened right before your eyes and to recognize that He who stilled the winds and the waves can bring joy and thanksgiving back into our lives also. It is to recognize that we were there, with Him on that cross and, supremely importantly, in His resurrection. It is to claim the truth of His continued eternal sovereign rule over heaven and earth and to cling to the words our brother Paul wrote when these truths flooded his consciousness... "What can separate ME from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."
Those words are penetrating beams of light that no darkness can obscure. It is not necessary that every detail stands out in sharp relief. If there are some things that are hazy and not quite in focus... so be it. The light is shining... I can see the light... and that is all, ultimately, I need.
For those who may, this day, be fearing the dark and feeling lost... there is a light shining in the darkness... trust it... follow it... there is safe harbor there for your souls.
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