Light That Heals
The Light of Jesus doesn’t just illuminate the world around us. It illuminates us, too.
Light That Heals
We usually think of light as something comforting.
A dark room feels different when we turn on a lamp. A dark road is safer with streetlights. The first light of morning can transform an ordinary landscape. But there is another side to light.
Light reveals things we would rather keep hidden.
Jesus talked about that.
After telling Nicodemus about God’s love and His purpose in sending His Son, Jesus explained why people respond differently to Him. John 3:19–20 says that the Light came into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the Light.
That’s an uncomfortable truth. We aren’t always lost in the darkness. Sometimes we prefer it.
Darkness can be convenient. It hides what we don’t want others to see. What remains in the shadows doesn’t have to be confronted. But when the Light comes, suddenly we can see what we thought was hidden.
The Light of Jesus doesn’t just illuminate the world around us. It illuminates us, too.
When we come into the presence of Christ, we begin to see ourselves more honestly. We see the attitudes we justify, the sins we redefine and rename, the wounds we have buried, and the places where we call something ‘light’ when God calls it darkness.
When we are exposed by the Light, our first instinct is to step backward, trying to slink back into that darkness again. But Jesus wants to heal us. The purpose of the Light is to reveal to us our problem. He’s not trying to humiliate us. He’s trying to help us see what we really are.
John says that the one who practices the truth comes to the Light. There is nothing to hide, because he wants his life to be seen for what God is doing in him.
The Light doesn’t reveal our sin because God is looking for a reason to condemn us. He brings the Light because He wants us to stop hiding.
Interestingly, that’s the first question God asked Adam in the garden:
“Where are you?”
God already knew where Adam was. He wanted him to step out of hiding and into the Light. Adam needed to see his sin.
That’s what God is asking some of us today. Come out of the shadows.
Jesus came to bring you out of the darkness and into life.
