Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

• Matthew 5:14-16

He is driven from light into the realm of darkness and is banished from the world.

• Job 18:18

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

• John 8:12

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

• Revelation 21:22-24

“Jesus said, ‘Let your light shine before others’ (Matt.  5:16). Naturally, it is the light of the call of Jesus that shines there. But just what kind of a light is that? … The good works of the disciples are supposed to be seen in this light. People are supposed to see not you, but your good works, says Jesus. What are these good works that can be seen in this light? It can be no works except those that Jesus himself created in the disciples when he called them, when he made them the light of the world under his cross -poverty, gentleness, peacefulness, being a stranger, and finally being persecuted and rejected, and in all of that, bearing the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is that strange light, the only light that shines where all these good works of the disciples can be seen. In all of this, there is no talk that God becomes visible, but that the ‘good works’ are seen, and the people give glory to God for these works.”

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You (devotion for September 14, devotions compiled from his writings)

I start off in error.  The title is “Let Your Light Shine.”  That is what everyone says, but…

It should be “Let God’s Light Shine within us.”  Even not capitalizing the “us”.

I wrote back near the beginning of this blogsite that I had dreamed up a children’s sermon, really a science experiment.  Take an empty glass, pyrex of course, something clear that can withstand a bit of heat.  You drop a lit taper in it.  Other than the taper burning, nothing happens.  But then you pour what looks like an empty glass that you have labelled “Jesus” into the empty glass, after removing the taper.  Then you add another lit taper and the flames flicker within the glass.  What had been in the “Jesus” glass was propane, a flammable gas that is heavier than air.

This “experiment” shows that it is NOT our light.  It is God’s light within us.

And as for placing your light under a bowl, what happens when you carefully hold a snuffer over a lit candle?  The candle goes out because it uses up the available air within the bowl of the snuffer.  You should never mash the snuffer onto the candle.  It might mess up the wick which makes the candle harder to light the next time.

So, maybe Jesus was saying in the Sermon on the Mount that if we hid the light that is within us, God within us, that is, we are risking that light not shining anymore.  If you are genuinely one of His followers, you will not lose your salvation, but you become less effective for His service.  Note the logical process that Bonhoeffer goes through in the quote.  The light is God’s light shining from us when we do as Jesus commanded, to help the needy, loving our neighbor and indeed loving everyone, even our enemy.  And those acts of love give glory to God, not ourselves.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.