The Light Inside--May 1, 2024

The Light Inside--May 1, 2024

"Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us." [1 John 4:11-12]

A little bit of basic junior high school level science: generally speaking, when you look out your window, you don't see light, but you see objects that light is hitting and bouncing off of. The trees and houses, the sky itself, and people you see when you walk out the door, they are all being lit by something that is invisible as it flies through the air. The little particles, or waves, (or both, say scientists, who still seem befuddled with what light is actually all about) that we call light are invisibly hurtling through empty space, and we don't see them until they hit some other object and the light bounces off and into our eyes. Aside from staring at the sun or into a light bulb (neither of which is advisable for very long because it is too intense for us to take in), pretty much we only ever see things that are lit up by light that comes from somewhere else.

This is the way John talks about God, us, and love. You can't see God--but you can see people who have been lit up by the love of the living God, and that kind of love starts bouncing around and touching other people, too. So others, who have never seen God, either, still get a sense of what God is like because they have come to know divine love through reflections of that love in God's people.  Because God lives within us, John says, the world can see that borrowed light of God from within us.

The Bible has a curious recurring theme in it that says you can't look at God, and if any one had such an opportunity, you would die from being in the awesomely brilliant holiness of God as a poor, finite creature. It's Moses up on the mountain, asking God to see the divine glory, and only getting to see God's backside and afterglow as the LORD passes by. Or there's Isaiah seeing a vision of God in the temple, and when he realizes he is in the presence of the living God, starts bemoaning that he is unworthy as a "man of unclean lips" who belongs to a "people of unclean lips." I am beginning to wonder whether we are hearing those stories rightly. For much of my life, I heard those stories much the same way I saw the Wizard character from The Wizard of Oz--putting on an awesome display to keep us off at arm's length. But maybe it's not about God needing to keep his distance--maybe it is about the sheer brilliance of who God is, and like staring at the sun, we are not supposed to do it very long for our sakes, and not for the sun's sake. It doesn't bother the sun one bit for us to look at it--it is that our eyes can only take in so much light before they are overwhelmed. And instead, we are meant to look at the world full of things that the sun illuminates. Moses doesn't get to see God's face, but not because God's ego is fragile and God can't stand to look the man in the eye. Isaiah rightfully turns his face from the divine majesty, but not because God insists on some privacy. It is because looking on God fully would overwhelm our eyes, our wills, our minds, and our hearts. So when John says that no one has ever seen God, he means it the same way someone taught you not to stare at the sun for very long--it is because we can only take so much of God's brilliance in before we are overwhelmed.

Instead, what we can see is the lives of people in whom God's love is radiating, through whom God's light is reflected onto us, and in whom God's own life pulses. This seems to be precisely how God prefers to run things--shining on us, the just and the unjust alike, like the sun, and then letting that light, that love, bounce around creation and enter our hearts and our lives. That means when our hearts are touched by the love of friends who comfort us when our spirits are broken open, we are experiencing the reflected and refracted love of the God who creates such people and who places them in our lives. It means when someone in the Christian community offers the word you needed or a hug when words fail, you are indirectly being illuminated by the light of God, just at a brightness that your eyes and heart can handle. And it also means that when the watching world wants to know what God is like, John says, it falls to us to reflect God's love onto it, so that all will see and know what the light of God's love is all about.

Today, we step out into another day knowing the world is full of light that is bouncing all around--off of the people and places who will be in our path today, and even bouncing off of us into their eyes. We also face this day knowing the very same about God's love. It is bouncing off of others who will show us divine love in their own actions and words today, and it is bouncing off of you today for the sake of someone else. Be in the light today.

O Lord God, our Light and our Salvation, let us live in the light of your love today, so that it will shine on someone else through us and because of us. And give us the eyes to recognize your love bouncing off of others into our lives, too. We pray it in the name of Jesus, who showed us your face in a way we could grasp.