As a kid I was deathly afraid of the dark.

Whenever I could I would leave my light on as I fell asleep. If I couldn’t get away with it, I would pull my covers tightly over my head to create a cocoon of safety. Before heading to bed I always opened the closet to check for the robbers or monsters that might be lurking behind my hanging dress shirts.

Honestly, I’m still not fond of the dark. I like light, a lot. No, I don’t pull the covers over my head anymore (unless my wife has left the fan on high and it’s freezing!) but I do drift to sleep each night yearning for the light of a new day.

As I’ve aged, I’ve come to understand darkness as something much more than the shadows of my childhood bedrooms. I see darkness all around now: genocide, depression, suicide, hate, war, the list goes on and on. I see people who wake up to the dawn of a new day and wonder if they’ll make it to the next. Others who don’t have to check their closets to know that there are monsters waiting for them around every corner.

Yet, with all the darkness, I see light creeping in, threatening its presence in the world. I see it in students who head to low-income neighborhoods to share hope, missionary friends who are ministering to those who need peace, pastors who are preaching messages of love and grace when their colleagues are doing the opposite, and in former peers who are fighting homelessness in the places where they live. I’ve seen it close to home as students who once saw church as the darkest place around them now joining the community of Christ to grow in their faith.

Many look around them and see nothing but darkness. These people have no hope of light ever gaining ground. The sad thing is, many of those I know who have this outlook also claim to follow Jesus. They are following the one who claims to be the light of the world, the one who dispels the darkness, and yet all they see are the monsters hiding in the shadows.

I can’t blame them though. So often we claim Jesus as light but live as if his bulb has blown. It’s so easy to lose hope and thus extinguish the hope his light brings into our lives.

Jesus’ bulb isn’t blown though. Jesus is still the light of the world. How can the light of the world possibly reach the darkest corners where monsters still threaten to overwhelm? The answer, I believe, is us.

Through us, Jesus brings light to the world. In a world that only sees darkness, we cannot afford to forget that Jesus reminds us to not put our lamp under a bowl but rather to put it on a stand to light even the darkest of places (Matthew 5:15). We simply can’t afford to hide the light our lamps offer.

Jesus’ light is bright and as we hold it high and shine it into those dark corners, we begin to see and the hope that he offers begins to permeate the world. When we throw the covers off that limit us and throw open the curtains to illuminate even the darkest of cities and hearts, the darkness begins to slowly fade away.

Jesus is still the light of the world, yes, but his light is only as bright as we let it become.

 

Are you searching for light and only seeing shadows?

Are you stuck in the darkness with nothing to reveal the path out?

Know that there is hope. Light is coming.

 

May we become less afraid of the dark as the light of Christ fills our lives.

 

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” – John 1:3-5