Receiving Light

God holds in His hands every good thing. The “vocation,” or “call” of every human being is simply to walk toward God, to walk in the Light, to receive from Him the gifts of life and holiness (2 Peter, 1:3).

It is a biblical principal that when we turn from the Light to the Darkness, the earth mourns, and everything in it dries up. The movie The Lion King is a beautiful illustration of this principle. Under the just, the earth prospers; under the rule of the evil, the earth shrivels and shrinks; famine prevails throughout the land, and the peoples prey on one another.

Light is essential to life, both on the physical and the spiritual levels. The physical dimension that we can touch, see, and hear mirrors the spiritual and invisible, but no less powerful, dimension of the spiritual life.

Einstein discovered on the physical level that Life equals Energy. Today, scientists are trying to convert matter back into energy, but the primary maxim is that all life emerged from energy in the beginning. In fact, with the discoveries of “dark matter” and “dark energy”--- neither of which can be seen, we now know that what we do see around us comprises only 5 percent of the entire universe. What holds together that 5% is something we cannot see, feel, taste, or hear----energy.

Anyone who reads Ann Landers on a regular basis will recognize that there are those whose energy has become so depleted that they have become “black holes” on the spiritual level, sucking into themselves the energy, goodness, and light of all those around them. We know from space exploration that anything that draws close to a black hole will be consumed; there is no escape from its power and strength. The only solution is to avoid the magnetic fields around the black holes.

Fortunately, the Book of John tells us that Light has come into the world, and that the darkness has never overcome it. Anyone who walks in the Light cannot be drawn in by darkness, but will himself radiate the Light of the World. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12). In other places, Jesus tells his disciples that they are the 'light of the world,' and cannot be hidden.  He also calls them "children of light" (Jn. 12:36). 

As Jesus emerges from the wilderness at the start of His public ministry, Matthew’s gospel proclaims: the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light; on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen (Matt 4:16).

Since we cannot hope to manufacture the Light ourselves, it seems to me that we have only one choice in life:  either we walk towards the Light, or we grovel in the dark.  If we have become trapped by the magnetism of darkness, which draws in and destroys everything it its path, there is still hope---the Light of the World that has never been overcome; the Energy of Life and Goodness, the Source of everything that is---Jesus Christ, the Gift of God and the Life of Mankind!