Matthew 5:14

Brothers and sisters in Christ, 

This evening’s Bible passages are “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14) and, for the second time, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

At our online community group meeting last night, I learned something about the physics of light and darkness. Most of you may know this already, but it was news to me. English education being what it was back then, I last took a science course at the age of 14. I failed it.

So I won’t try to explain what I learned last night in scientific terms. Put very simply, I learned that physics agrees with the apostle John: while light can shine in darkness, darkness can’t overcome light. You can go into a dark room and switch on the light or light a candle, but you can’t go into a light room and switch on the darkness. Darkness has no independent existence; it’s just the absence of light.

Two or three members of our group shared stories of entering an underground cave—or other place where natural light didn’t penetrate—with a bunch of other people and a guide. The guide asked everyone to extinguish all artificial light sources: not just flashlights, but in this digital age even watches and phones. Total darkness. Then the guide lit a match. Just a single, little match. And there was light in the cave; even by the light of a match, surrounding details could be seen. The light shone in the darkness; the darkness couldn’t withstand the light of a single match.

This simple fact helped me better understand both of this evening’s Bible passages. It’s in the nature of the world as God created it that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Just as human beings can close the blinds to shut out the light of the sun, moon, and stars, but can never extinguish them, so human beings can close their eyes to the light of God’s self-revelation in Christ, but we can never extinguish it. In the same way, human beings can yield to the darkness of sin, on a local or an international scale, but God’s promise remains: the darkness brings suffering and fear, but it will not in the end overcome the light of God’s goodness and mercy.

It’s in this context, too, that I can better understand Jesus’s teaching, “You are the light of the world.” How can I, a flawed child of God, who still struggles to walk in the light and not to sidestep into the shadows, how can I be the light of the world? I long ago abandoned the presumptuous notion that God might have called me to be something like the sun shining into the darkness of the world as a whole. I was reminded last night of the power of a single, small match. I understood anew that I can light many little matches of love and kindness, one after another. I can speak gently rather than harshly and, by that small change, shine light into the darkness. I can’t discover the vaccine that will protect us all from COVID-19 and I can’t evangelize the world—God hasn’t called me to so grand a task—but I can send a meditation out each night to members of a small congregation in Madison, Wisconsin, and so, I hope, shine a little light into the darkness of the pandemic. This, I believe, is the task to which God has called me, at least for now.

Last night, as the sun set for the night outside, and nine of us sat indoors staring at our computers or phones, watching each other’s faces and listening to each other’s voices, the members of our community group shed light into my darkness, teaching me something about the power of God’s light that I hadn’t known before. I don’t have to solve the problems of the world—God has called others to that grand task—but I can still shine light into the darkness, one small match at a time. So can you.

Would you join me in singing?

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Your brother in Christ,

Max